The team jumped out of the tilt-wing as Marius struggled to keep the craft clear of the trees which were perilously close on each side of the narrow channel, with Shimazu leading the way, Aswon and Kai following him and Hunter bringing up the rear. Aswon and Kai didn't have time to react as they saw Shimazu sink to his knees in the brackish ground, bubbles escaping from the mud as the soft earth gave way beneath his feet, and a moment late they joined him, the cold water rushing into their boots and through their trousers. Marius started to angle up, leaving Hunter without much choice and he jumped, landing and sinking equally far in the soft mire.
Around them the trees crowded down to the water's edge, boughs drooping to the surface of the swampy land and occasionally plunging into watery pools. The ground was a mass of twisting roots between the soft mud, and as they waded inland, they all had to slow their pace as they started to slip, twist and lose their balance on the hidden obstacles. The air was still, humid and slightly oppressive, and it felt like they were the only living things for miles around. Although they were in bright sunlight here, they could see a few metres into the dense growth, and the interlinked branches and canopy growth led to a dark interior that looked gloomy and oppressive.
Carefully they pushed inland – only to discover that 'inland' was actually 'more of the same' – a sucking quagmire of decaying vegetation, mud, slime and slippery roots all mingled together that cut down their pace dramatically. With the passage of the river eroding some banks and depositing silt and earth elsewhere, the terrain shifted from week to week, and they were likely the first people to stand – or squelch – here. Moving under the canopy, their sense of unease grew as the visibility steadily dropped. Tall, slender trees were crammed together densely, blocking the line of sight past a few metres and making them feel that an ambush could be only a few seconds away. Shimazu took a moment to let his eyes adjust, while the others tried scanning thermally and with ultrasound, trying to get a good picture of what lay ahead.
They pushed south, following the spirit guardian that directed Shimazu, tracing the trail to Tads and following the magical signature of the shaman that had summoned it at dawn. It floated gently above the surface of the swamp, ignoring the rough terrain and flitting back and forth as it tried to follow the almost imperceptible trail of mana. About forty metres in, they came across a small clearing where a fallen tree had crashed into the swamp, knocking some other trees to the side and opening a hole in the canopy, creating a lance of light that illuminated the swampy ground and showed them the new growth already working to fill and grow into the gap.
Pushing on, they heard a grumble of disgust from Shimazu and saw him sink and sway to his right, his leg dropping until the surface of the swamp was just below his crotch. With a grunt of effort, he lurched towards a tree, working hard to pull his leg up out of the ground. Weapons snapped up, Hunter checking their rear while Kai and Aswon stood ready to stab whatever creature had attacked their point man. They relaxed a little as Shimazu pulled his right leg out of the swamp, revealing it to be undamaged but minus his boot.
"Soft bit there… and when I pulled up, I think I snapped the laces." He frowned, looking at the black, bedraggled sock that was dripping onto the soft surface of the swamp below and then plunged his foot back into the muck, working his way to the tree. Holding onto a low branch, he pulled up his left foot and then yanked at the laces, snapping them and pulling the boot off before pitching it into the water. "There, balanced now."
"Bugger that," said Aswon, and worked himself over to a tree and then climbed up it, his hands, arms and legs sticking to the trunk, while inside his clothing, his gecko tattoo flared with power. Once he was about a metre up, he reached over to the next tree and swung over to it, starting to wend his way through the dense foliage like an orangutan.
Overhead, Marius swung around in a lazy circle, keeping the starboard side facing inwards to ensure the non-warded door could remain shut. The Russian gunners watched the forest below, looking for any signs of hostile targets, and in the co-pilot's seat the EWO kept a track on the comms set worn by the four team-members, plotting their slow progress through the swamp below.
The ground team travelled onwards, slipping and sliding or swinging through the trees, getting hot and sweaty in the close and humid air. Shimazu paused for a moment, then hesitantly moved forwards, sword out in front of him and his left hand out behind him as a counter-balance. Slowly he rose up out of the swamp, climbing a gentle slope that rose perhaps half a metre from the swamp surface, before starting to fall again, dropping him back into the muck. Ten metres further on, there was another ridge, but this time they could see it curving off to their left and right a little, a ridge of drier and more solid land about three metres in width.
Another slog forwards, and they found another ridge, closer than the last, but about the same width. Again they could see it for a few metres either way, and could detect the subtle curve to either side.
"These are definitely getting closer together, Kai."
"And it looks like they curve ahead of us Shimazu… like concentric circles. Reminds me of ripples in a pond when you throw a stone in. Hmm."
"If they're ripples, then I wonder what's at the centre?" Aswon called down from above them.
"I don't know. But whatever it was, it hit hard enough to make the ground liquefy and ripple out – and then set into solid land, in the middle of all this. That's a worrying thought. I'll bet you a week's pay that we find what we're looking for in the middle…"
"That would be an interesting wager – if you remembered to pay us!" Aswon responded indignantly.
"Well, now's not the time to discuss that, let's push on and see if we can find Tads, shall we?" Kai responded smoothly, and started to move forwards, making a gently shooing motion to get Shimazu to do the same. Aswon glowered at him for a moment and then resumed his progress through the trees. A moment later, he paused and looked around him, wondering what had suddenly caught his attention. The others froze, wondering what he'd spotted, and waiting for him to report.
Aswon looked around, not spotting anything in particular amidst the dense woodland – but then the unnatural stillness caught up with him. No birdsong, no sound of water, no wind in the leaves. It was silent, unnaturally silent. He looked around astrally, but couldn't see a spell effect over the area, which only made the quiet even more unnerving. He looked down and shook his head.
"I think we're getting close."
As they started to move forwards again, they heard a quiet hiss in their earbuds, barely perceptible to begin with, but rising in volume very subtly as they pushed on.
"Marius, we're getting interference on the comms. Are you reading us?"
"Ja, you're coming in, but signal strength is down, and I'm getting some distortion. Wait one." He set the autopilot on the tilt-wing and then jumped out of the controls for a moment and turned to the EWO next to him. "When you were making your attacks with the Brigade – did you ever find something interfering with your communications?"
"Da! Sometimes nothing, but some days it was like we were being jammed. Signal strength down, and lots of hissing and popping – like we used to get with the old analogue radios. Some days it was so bad that even with the power amps turned up to full, we could only contact the closest units to us, and they had to relay the messages. Played hell with our planning and organisation, and normally happened just as we were going to get ambushed or attacked." Marius nodded at him, then sunk his consciousness back into the vehicle and rerouted power to the radio.
"Just spoken to the EWO – they had the same thing when they were attacking Yakut – sounds like more magic bullshit to me. I'm boosting power and racking up the counter measures, for what they're worth." The radio clicked as the ground team acknowledged him, and they pressed on, their radio signals moving forwards and occasionally flaring and jumping around as the interference gave false readings or squelched the signal.
The team pushed onwards, and their comms continued to degrade, despite all Marius could do – he could hear them, but they were distorted and there was static and interference on every channel he used. Their signals also jumped around randomly and violently enough that he had no certainty as to their actual locations at all. The tilt-wing continued to orbit, hopefully staying close enough to wherever they were to provide air support.
On the ground, as the team pushed forwards the ridges grew closer and closer together, the ground becoming drier and slightly raised. They were glad to leave the sucking swamp behind, but they all had a strange sensation in their stomachs – whatever was going on, they were getting close to it, they were sure. Shimazu rounded a tree, the rest of the team on his six, and he came to a halt at the strange sight before him.
A small pond lay ahead of him, at the centre of a clear area, flat and slightly depressed. The water inside was frozen over, a thin sheet of delicate ice showing intricate patterns of swirls and loops. Frost and snow lay about the area, and as he edged forwards to enter the clearing, he could see his breath fogging up, forming a plume from his mouth and nose. The air felt chill, and was a marked drop from the land outside, and cold seeped up from the frozen ground through his soaked socks.
In the centre of the clearing and about one metre up in the air he spied a large floating crystal - perhaps half a metre high that was spinning on its long axis. It seems to radiate an aura of cold and menace, but had no discernible features or markings. Despite that, there was a feeling of being observed by some calculating malevolent entity. Under the crystal, on a half-submerged tree, lay the astral form of Tads, laid out with her arms by her side and a faint smile on her face. The temperature in the central area must have been below zero, the ground frozen and all the plant life dead or dying as if in the midst of a harsh winter.
He edged forward, around a large granite boulder that rose out of the frozen earth, the others closing up on his position to stare at the scene in confusion. A large roar pierced the air, and in the dense frozen trees on the other side of the clearing, they saw the large form of a bear, starting to lumber and batter its way through the frozen terrain. A second roar rang out, and another third of the way around the clearing they saw a second bear, a touch larger than the first, also starting to pick up speed. While the first came around the edge of the pond in a clockwise direction, the second travelled anti-clockwise, moving to attack them from the other side in a pincer movement.
"Contact! I've got the left," called Shimazu, his sword flashing up into a guard position and he started to move carefully forwards over the snow and ice, heading to intercept the second bear.
"I'm on the right!" Aswon bought his spear to a ready position, moving around the perimeter towards the first bear. Kai moved forwards a little, drawing his taser and checking the charge, getting ready to back either of them up if need be, while Hunter brought up his rifle and checked behind them, listening carefully as Shimazu and Aswon moved to engage.
Overhead, Marius heard the cries of alarm, making out some details through the static and tried to work out what was going on. With only one radio receiver, he couldn't triangulate their positions – even assuming their signal behaved itself, so he couldn't work out where they were – but he also couldn't see where the team were engaging visually. He snarled with frustration and continued to circle, waiting for either a call for fire or something to show itself on the vehicle sensors.
Aswon kept his eyes peeled as he moved forwards, checking his flanks as the bear lumbered towards him. The trees provided excellent cover for it, and it flitted in and out of view despite its huge size, so he didn't bother wasting time on trying to hit it with a throwing knife, and instead used the time to get a good mental picture of his surroundings before he was drawn into the maelstrom of combat. A blur in the trees caught his eye, and he spotted a lower, smaller shape stealthily moving through the trees towards Hunter and Kai.
"North side! Another one coming!" he called out as a warning, and Hunter swung to the north, raising his assault rifle and letting his SmartLink seek for a target. Kai moved in to the clearing, heading for cleared ground so he could catch up with Shimazu, figuring that Aswon and Hunter had the north side, so he should back up Shimazu to the south. As he stepped into the clearing, the interference on the radio seemed to clear up, the static abruptly stopping.
Overhead, Marius twitched as Kai's beacon ceased to exist. It dropped from the network entirely, vanishing with a heart stopping suddenness. No carrier wave, no encryption key – it was like the device had just stopped transmitting entirely.
"What's going on down there! Is Kai down?"
Kai meanwhile spotted movement to the south west, on the other side of the frozen pond. Two humans became visible as he shifted position, standing in what looked like a hollow or depression, so only their torso and heads were visible. One of them spotted him in return and started to wave his hands around in the air, a look of concentration on his face. Kai recognised the style of movements – he saw them most mornings while Tads was summoning her spirits. There were some differences, but it was close enough that he was convinced that they were summoning in reinforcements. He raised the taser and sighted as best he could then fired, and was gratified to see the figure suddenly stiffen and lurch, giving a few sharp spasms and then falling to the ground out of sight.
Shimazu glanced at the bear still closing on his position and threw his sword into the air, deftly catching it with his left hand while his right clawed at the pistol in the holster on his right hip. Drawing the Warhawk, he aimed at the second figure and snatched at the trigger. The pistol barked as the round flew out of the barrel, but instead of the normal rumbling boom that was one of the signatures of the large calibre pistol, the sound was muted and distorted slightly, as if something was damping the echo. Shimazu frowned as the second figure dropped out of sight – he was pretty sure the enemy had thrown himself out of the way before the round had hit. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the bear close, and he dropped the pistol, quickly bring his right hand to meet his left and take a two-handed grip on his sword.
His attention was on the bear, calculating the perfect strike on the huge target and the tiger that suddenly intruded on his peripheral vision caught him flat-footed. It leapt through the air, covering five metres in a single bound, with both front paws extended towards him, huge scimitar-like claws ready to rake down his face and body. While his brain boggled, wondering how it had crept so close, years of practice took over.
Muscle memory drove the spin, and the sword seemed to move of its own accord, slashing across the path of the leaping cat while his feet drove him sideways, out of the path of the charging beast. His blow lacked power, his position not letting him drive force into the blow, but the razor sharp magical weapon was not to be taken lightly. The glimmering edge sliced up across the chest, opening a deep wound and crimson blood sprayed downwards and coloured the snow before him.
The second tiger leapt at Hunter, but warned by Aswon's shout, he had had time to prepare and aim, and a six round burst struck the tiger centre of mass, driving in through the chest as the beast rose up, starting it's leap towards him. The explosive rounds detonated in sequence and the tiger distorted as internal organs liquefied and shattered under the force as each bullet exploded in turn. The tiger collapsed, sliding across the snow and tumbling as it hit roots and rocks, sending blood out in a chaotic spray. Hunter gave a smile of satisfaction and released the rifle, letting it fall on the sling and drew his sword from the scabbard slung over his shoulder, so he could behead the best.
Seeing Shimazu turn to engage the tiger, Kai swung his taser round and fired his second shot into the approaching bear. The sharpened prongs pierced the furry hide, and a moment later a smell of burning flesh filled the air as the charge fired, sending the bear sideways as muscles twitched and writhed – but it stayed upright and continued to move forwards. Kai fired again, sending another pair of darts into the hide and the smell of burning intensified, but still the beast staggered on. Shimazu stepped to the side, backing away from the wounded tiger to bring both it and the bear into his forward arc, so he could see and fight them both, crossing the threshold into the clearing.
Overhead Marius watched as another comm set dropped off his network, going quiet. He swore under his breath, and called for the EWO to try and regain comms, while he stared at the sensors, trying to look for anomalies or clues as to what was going. He was pretty sure that he was on the receiving end of some magical effect now, and had some insight of how the various police and border guards must feel when Tad's spirits or magical illusions vexed their efforts to trace them. It was considerably less happy-making when he was on the receiving end, though!
Shimazu faced down the charging bear, watching as it staggered in towards him, still trailing the ultra-fine wires from the taser behind it. He assumed a traditional guard position, his feet set in an L shape, ready to move in any direction, with the blade held in hands held at waist height. He was poised and balanced, his muscles relaxed and his eyes defocussed slightly, taking in the situation around him. At just the right moment he sidestepped to the left and slashed out to his right, opening up the side of the bear's throat in a single fluid motion. A hoarse roar of pain turned into a gurgle as aspirated blood streamed forth from the wound, forming a puddle where the creature drove nose first into the cold hard ground.
Above, as Marius turned in, he saw a flicker in his peripheral vision, a moment's glance from the tail sensor that showed a break in the canopy of the dense woodland – but when he turned his head it vanished. He quickly marked the position on the map and told the EWO to backtrace his position and mark a bearing, much to his confusion. He started to swing around now, deliberately moving the sensor sweeps back and forth, trying to recreate the sensation. In the back the door gunners spread their feet wider and braced against the harnesses as the tilt-wing started to slew back and forth in sharp S-turns, subjecting them to a few gee's of force.
It went quiet for a heartbeat, a bare moment of time in which the solitude of the frozen vista was unbroken. Then, with a roar, all four creatures surged to their feet again, roars of rage and pain mingling into one as their wounds magically regenerated, life force returning to them despite the vast swathes of crimson that littered the landscape. Shimazu pirouetted, building up speed and then slashing viciously at the bear, opening up a huge rent in the matted thick black fur, decorating more of the frozen ground with sanguine offerings. Aswon rocked back on his feet and then charged at his bear, driving the spear forward into the open maw and spitting it like he was hunting boar. As he did, his feet crossed the boundary of the frozen expanse, and his comms too went quiet. Above Marius flinched as yet another node on his network blinked out of existence, and his frustration grew ever more urgent.
The tiger to the rear pounced, raising paws high again to rake at Hunter. It didn't carry the same momentum as its last attack, but Hunter was no expert with the sword – at least not yet. He parried as he'd been taught, but the instruction videos he'd watched on the matrix hadn't contemplated having a three hundred kilo tiger being the opponent. He deflected the blows slightly, but not enough, and he staggered back as the claws scraped down his shoulders and flank with a horrible screech, the sharp claws ripping through the fabric and scraping across the ceramic plates stitched inside, jumping and catching on the overlapping plates.
He tried to bring the blade back for a riposte, but the first hit had knocked him slightly off balance, and he felt the paws scrabble at him, continuing their downward journey and rending his groin and trousers. The lighter armour on the legs buckled and ripped, and eight bloody lacerations opened up, four on each leg in long parallel lines that ran to his knee. Blood oozed out of the lacerations in big red droplets for a moment, then stopped, forming a viscous goo that bubbled along the length of the cuts. All the hassle of sourcing his drugs paid off as the bio-engineered platelet factory went to work, forcing his blood to coagulate with unnatural speed and preventing the wounds from haemorrhaging.
Over to the south, the tiger facing Shimazu swung low, paws trying to sweep his legs from under him. Again, the blade flashed out, licking across the extended paw and shaving off a large sliver of muscle, sinew and fur and causing the beast to howl in pain and rage, drawing back on three good limbs while the fourth sprayed blood over the snow which now looked more like a piece of disturbed modern art rather than a scene of winter pristine beauty. Continuing his motion, Shimazu twisted and then slashed back across his body, the blade slicing across the neck and back of the bear and striking some vital nerve cluster and causing the beast to collapse in a heap on the floor.
As Shimazu followed through with his backswing, he moved far enough to the side to give Kai a clear shot, and the last set of taser prongs fired out at the distracted tiger, causing it to convulse and shake with uncontrollable spasms until it too collapsed on the floor. Kai dropped the expended weapon, and turned to face towards the human on the other side of the pond, looking to see what he was up to. As he did so, he looked out across the pond with the myriad patterns traced across the frozen surface. The patterns intertwined and twisted, seeming to form some arcane shapes, and Kai concentrated on them, trying to determine their meaning. His eyes glazed and defocussed, and he stood bolt upright in the middle of the blood stained snow, exposed and still, an easy target for anyone to shoot at.
Unaware of the danger to his boss, Shimazu leapt into the air, soaring upwards and towards the bear. As he descended, his blade raised and then dropped with enormous force, his bodyweight adding to the effort and driving the blade clear through the massive sinews and neck muscles, severing the head from the body in one fell swoop.
Having spitted his bear successfully, Aswon grabbed one of the RG58 grenades he'd been saving for 'special occasions', throwing it towards the human hiding in cover on the other side of the pond. He fumbled slightly as he tried to keep the spear jammed into the bear's gullet, and the grenade landed short of his intended point, striking the ground instead on the edge of the pond. The explosion rang out with the same muffled and deadened retort, but large chunks of ice were smashed and fracture lines raced across the pond, including towards the log that Tads was laid upon. He hoped that the log was actually resting on the bottom of the water for a moment, until his mind caught up with reality – she was only there astrally, not physically – so she wasn't actually resting on the log. At least not unless something else really weird was going on!
In the skies above, Marius started work on a plan, plotting his GPS co-ordinates and monitoring where the craft was going compared to his map position, and ignoring the physical terrain outside. He mapped in the positions of his flight so far, and a big nebulous area for where he thought he had seen the mirage or apparition, throwing all the data on the map. Instead of looking for something odd, now he tried looking for where he hadn't flown, or where he'd drifted off course for some reason…
Shimazu pulled the blade free from the bear and ran it through the neck of the tiger, sawing upwards with the blade to sever the head here as well. He sawed frantically, watching the head lol forwards and then rip from the body as he hacked at the tissue, while his head whipped around to look at the area. He saw Kai still standing, and assumed he was aiming for a shot at something, then with a grunt he pulled the blade free from the decapitated head and started to sprint towards Hunter to lend him a hand. Behind him Kai stood still, his hands empty and by his side, staring at nothing while above him the spirit summoned by the enemy used its power to confuse and muddle his mind.
To the north of the clearing, Aswon stabbed at the bear again as the wounds magically regenerated, power knitting the wound closed even as he ripped out the spear ready to thrust it deep into the huge shaggy body once more. Hunter stabbed at the tiger with his sword, opening up a shallow cut as he backed off to try and open the range a little. The cut made the tiger flinch, just enough for Hunter to drop his blade and scrabble for the rifle, still dangling on the sling and raise it to his waist. The induction pad built into his palm synced up with the gun and the crosshair showed he was lined up correctly – and with a mental twitch the gun fired, spitting out rounds that punched through the body opening up a huge cavity in the chest as the explosive rounds detonated in the dense tissue. Again.
The sky above the pond rippled and tore, and the nose of the tilt-wing appeared, slicing into the area from nowhere, the illusion parting and sliding down the hull like a sci-fi ship decloaking to attack. In the cockpit, Marius studiously ignored the sensors that would otherwise have led him astray, instead concentrating on the GPS and inertial navigation, driving the craft forwards and into the area that his plot revealed he'd been flying around blindly.
Having driven the bear down to the ground again, Aswon drew a throwing knife from his bandolier and sent it flying across the clearing into the flanks of the human, who looked to be in the middle of summoning more spirits, and was rewarded with a cry of pain and seeing the man stagger sideways, his ritual disrupted. Behind him, Shimazu rounded Hunter and swung down, his blade once more severing the head from the body in a single vicious blow, while Hunter raised the rifle to his shoulder – more to steady the effects of recoil than to aim, in case the beast stirred again.
The roar of the engines made them turn and look – apart from Kai, who still stared blankly into space. As they saw the tilt-wing and their spirits raised, they immediately fell again when they saw one of the two large free spirits from the base, materialised over the astral form of their shaman, manipulating the crystal which started to lower towards her supine form.
The tilt-wing shuddered through the air, and Marius gave a cry of alarm as multiple caution lights flared red and shuddered as he felt his craft become sluggish and unresponsive. Ice crackled down the wings and across the fuselage, jet fuel became thick as treacle and control surfaces froze in position as the craft transitioned from a somewhat reasonable twenty degrees Celsius of the summer morning outside the clearing to the harsh and unexpected arctic blast of an environment that with wind-chill registered as negative forty. Marius activated every heating circuit or warming system he had, aware that another few degrees colder the fuel would freeze solid in the pipes, starving the engines of power and causing him to pancake into the ground.
Behind him though, in the fuselage, merely human reaction speeds were at work. The Russian door-gunners hadn't really started to feel cold yet, their senses only just beginning to feel the icy stabs across their flesh. What they did see though was a big mythic crystal pulsing and spinning, with some weird spirit manipulating it. They didn't know what it was, or have the vaguest understanding of what it was doing. They also didn't really care much. They'd been abused, terrified, made to feel insignificant and filled with shame for the last week while magical creatures had battered them into submission – and now they had a chance to enact some payback.
Two blasts of automatic fire lanced out from the medium machine guns, chattering away as rounds slammed into the crystal, one from the starboard side and one from the tail ramp. The additional gunner fired his AK as well, the slower and lighter rounds still striking true as the familiar weapon fired at short range. Sparks and flashes exploded all across the surface of the crystal, as rounds deflected or bounced off the forces contained within it, the magical nature of the crystal preserving it from damage. As round after round hit though, the defences weakened and started to fail, and rounds started to penetrate the crystal, blasting their way into the core.
The crystal exploded, with intensely bright purple light blasting outwards in a sphere, and Aswon, Hunter and Shimazu flinched, throwing themselves flat on the floor or behind trees. Shards of purple crystal followed along behind the explosion of light, jagged splinters of mineral driving through the air into trees, rocks, ice and snow. Most were fine, a shower of small needles that disintegrated on hitting anything sturdy, but a few of the chunks were the width of a bullet, and one or two were as thick as the throwing knives that Aswon wore in his bandolier, and just as sharp.
One of those shard flew through the air, the shattered tip forming a sharp point that would easily penetrate flesh with the power of the explosion driving it.
Kai stood still, upright, in full view at the edge of the pond.
Time seemed to slow as they caught sight of the crystal as it slammed into his chest, ripping through his clothing and driving in towards his heart. Slowly, his body started to fall, stiff as a board, as the blast wave hit him and drove him from his feet, the crystal worming its way through his body.
Above them, they almost didn't notice the vortex of swirling magical energy forming around the centre of the space where they crystal had been. Mana was ripped and twisted, vanishing into a central point and pulling at the world around it. The free spirit screamed in terror, and was dragged into the void, the body elongating and stretching as the magical forces ripped at the body, flailing helplessly as it passed the event horizon of whatever strange magical force had been detonated in the middle of the clearing.
Sound returned suddenly, the roar of the engines echoing off the trees, and steam flashed up from the centre of the pond as the freezing energies of the sacrificial altar started to boil off, the forces of nature rushing back in to reclaim the land.
The astral form of Tads shifted slightly, the faint smile fading away and her eyes opened, looking around the clearing in confusion. Aswon was running across the edge of the clearing, but waved his arms around, trying to attract her attention, and when she spotted him he made broad sweeping motions up towards the tilt-wing, now sliding to a halt above them wreathed in steam. She understood his intent and started to fly up there, assuming that her body lay within.
Hunter and Shimazu watched the tiger for a moment, but the final burst of explosive rounds seemed to have put it down for good. While Hunter recovered his sword and sheathed it, Shimazu turned on his heel and ran over towards Kai, grabbing the medkit from his back as he crossed the bloody ground, already turning into a quagmire as the snow and ice melted with the removal of the unnatural cold.
"What the hell has been going on down there?" Marius sounded annoyed, as he carefully went into a hover over the centre of the pond, surveying the scene of carnage below.
"One live target, south west side, crouched down behind the trees," Hunter called out, extending his arm in a chopping motion to show the direction. As Marius swung the tilt-wing around to bring the door and tail gunners to bear on the direction, he saw Aswon sprinting around from the north, his long legs propelling him over a fallen tree and crashing through the underbrush on the other side. His rifle was still slung on his back, and he held his spear almost like a mounted knight, tucked in tight to his body and ready to impale any target foolish enough to come into range.
The shaman hiding in the trees saw the lanky Nigerian bearing down on him, spear tip spitting and fizzing with mana in the astral plane, and turned to run south. Aswon saw the door gunners aiming, but his cries for them to stop were too late, and two strings of automatic fire stitched through the body turning it to mulch.
"Bugger. So much for asking questions." Aswon slowed, and moved to examine the little bowl that the two shaman had been sheltering in. There were two bedrolls, and some primitive camping equipment tucked away, and signs of a small fire – by the looks of things, they'd been here for some time, sheltering from the wind and using the area to summon spirits each dawn and dusk to send down to the base.
Over on the other side of the pond, Shimazu was checking over Kai, examining his wounds. It looked like he'd copped for a number of small needles, a myriad of tiny puncture wounds studding his arms and legs, but they didn't concern him overly. The larger hole in his chest did – it looked deep, and more alarmingly, there was no sign of the fragment that had struck him. Shimazu gloved up quickly, and then carefully peeled the clothing back, ripping it to expose the skin and examine the wound more carefully. There was a hole, nearly twenty five millimetres across, almost over the centre of his heart. He could see down into the body almost as deeply, but the red flesh in the wound didn't seem to be bleeding at all. He should have been elbow deep in blood now, screaming at someone for a bag of O negative while he stuck a bandage into the wound still in a roll to try and stem the bleeding…but instead there was just this unnatural cavity, with no sign of the crystalline fragment that had caused it.
He sprayed the hole with anti-bacterial and microbial solutions, rammed in some anti-fungal cream, liberally sprayed the area with dermal filler and then slapped a compression bandage over the top. He wanted to do a full chest examination and look for that fragment – but this wasn't the place to be doing open chest surgery, so he'd try and hold things together until they could get back to the base. He worked deftly and quickly, hands that had bought carnage and death only thirty seconds before, now moving with delicate life-saving grace.
Aswon stared down at the corpse of the second shaman – and the dark bloody Athame that protruded out of the centre of the body. Neither he nor the rest of the team had done that, he was sure, which meant that when their position was being overrun, either one of them had sacrificed himself for the other – or had been sacrificed to provide a source of magical power. Perhaps that was how the free spirit had arrived when it did, trying to rush through the ritual to kill Tads? Aswon kept away from the knife, not wanting to touch something so tainted, but instead checked around the camp and the bloody ruin of the shaman who'd been cut down by the gunners. Both had a small golden coloured sickle, along with a small bag of herbs and cut flowers – none of them magical in nature as far as he could see, along with some jerky and two small water skins. There was little he could see that gave the team any clue as to who these men where, or what forces they served…
Popping up from the bowl, he looked over the pond and saw Shimazu working on Kai, bandaging him up neatly and stabbing a hypospray at his neck. The situation seemed to be in hand, and he'd not heard any cries for help, but as he was turning away to climb out of the bowl, he caught a flicker of movement. Pressed into the ground, lying almost underneath Kai he spotted the spirit that had befuddled Kai into standing still, using his body as a disguise and a block against being spotted!
"Shimazu! SPIRIT! Hiding under Kai's back!" Shimazu grabbed his sword and thrust, the blade cutting through the downy hair at the nape of the neck, but then sliding into the spirit and destroying it with a single quick blow. As the spirit was disrupted, Kai's eyes flickered open, and he looked up at the sky with a puzzled look on his face, before his eyes flicked over to Shimazu.
"Have we rescued Tads?"
"Yes Kai, she's up on the chopper. She should be resting, I hope."
"Oh good. We should probably check that pond. I don't like the look of that purple crystal thingy."
"Why don't you just take a moment, catch your breath and let us clear up." Shimazu checked the hypospray to be sure he hadn't administered opiates rather than broad spectrum antibiotics. Kai should be howling in pain right now with the size of that hole in his chest – either that or going a pale grey and being covered in sweat as he went into shock. As it was, neither of those were happening. He looked like he'd just woken up from a nap and needed to rub the sleep out of his eyes, but was otherwise fine.
The team checked around the pond, recovering the corpses of the four shapeshifters and checking them over, looking for any clues they might have missed or valuable items. The body that Hunter had shot was pretty much ruined, but the other three having been killed by magical weapons were still unpolluted, and would potentially make fine ingredients for some kind of enchantment – once Tads was recovered, of course. As they dragged the corpses over, Aswon suddenly looked up as he heard a noise; then realised it was just birdsong, and the wind in the trees. Whatever magical effect had kept this place isolated from the outside world was fading away.
"So, one of the spirits looked like it got sucked into the vortex, whatever it was. But did anyone see the second?" One by one the team answered, confirming that nobody had seen it at all. "That worries me. They seemed to be acting in concert, and there's no good can come from leaving one of them still out there. Definitely not a good idea, having an angry free spirit with a vendetta against us." Nobody answered him, and there didn't seem to be anything more he could say on the matter, so he spent a minute looking fruitlessly for any remains or fragments of the purple crystal.
With the area as sanitised as they could get it, Marius swung the tilt-wing round and lowered the craft down, balancing on the ground effect and keeping the rear ramp about ten centimetres off the ground. The team piled on, grunting as they dragged the tiger and bear corpses aboard, dragging the bodies past the incredulous Russians on the back ramp. As they moved up the narrow fuselage, they could see Tads sitting up in her seat, looking a little tired, but unwounded, held in place by the harness. She nodded at them, and then reached for a water bottle, slowly sipping at the liquid to moisten her parched throat.
Marius was already lifting them up, and transitioning to forward flight, accelerating quickly as he aimed back towards Samara. The ground turned into a blur as he poured power to the engines, the massive rotor fans pulling them through the air and the clearing receded behind them quickly.
"So just what was that purple crystal thing?" Shimazu asked, pushing Kai down into his seat and strapping him in, before retreating to the other side of the hull to sit himself down, where he could watch and observe Kai.
"I don't know for certain, but I think it was a unique kind of enchantment – some kind of astral gateway. I have no idea what plane of magic or reality it led to, but I think they meant to fuel it with Tads' essence. When it was broken, it caused a backlash, ripping the spirit apart and sucking it through the doorway before it collapsed. At least that's my theory. But I've never seen anything like it before, being blunt."
Hunter leaned over some cargo, turning his mouth away from the nearby Russians and activated his comms.
"Do we want to be discussing this stuff in front of our guests?" Aswon looked over at him, then round at each of the Russians.
"I think they've seen enough weird shit that some talk isn't going to phase them, especially when they probably have no idea what we're talking about at all." Aswon stared at Hunter for a moment, until the ork shrugged. He looked unhappy with discussing things in front of the Russians, but Aswon didn't want to have to remain silent until they got back to Samara. "Now then Kai – can I have a look and see what happened to you?" Kai nodded, and relaxed his mental shields, dropping his astral mask and revealing his aura. Aswon and Shimazu both stared at him, carefully examining his aura and checking him out for signs of possession or corruption.
As they peered at him they both realised that he was different…not wrong, not broken, and certainly not showing signs of taint or malaise – just…different. They both knew of course that most magical practitioners had a "signature", a magical fingerprint that reflected who and what they were, and how they performed their magic. It was one of the reasons Tads worked to try and remove the signs of her spells after casting, to prevent any forensic mages from coming along and picking up on her unique signature, tying her to magical crimes. It was possible to change your signature, though it required a great deal of effort and magical power, and the more power a mage had, the harder it was to do. But somehow, Kai had changed his signature, becoming something just a little different.
"Did you mean to do that Kai?" Aswon asked.
"I…think I did? I'm not entirely sure." Tads looked back and forth between them, not entirely sure what had them worried yet, but then had a look herself in the astral realm and gave a start as she saw the change. Despite that though, she could still pick up on the link forged between them all, the commonality of their magical group and the bond to their avatar. It was definitely him, just different.
"What do you mean Kai? Did you want to do that or not?"
"I think I did. It was like I was talking, to myself. And I told myself I wanted to change. There was a voice in the darkness, that sounded like me anyway. Very convincing."
"Hrumph. I've never seen that happen to anyone unless they very definitely wanted to!"
"Well, he got back onto the tilt-wing ok, through the back ramp. That meant he crossed the ward without setting it off, so I don't think there's any unwanted passengers in there." Tads pointed out.
"What are you lot talking about – what's different?" Hunter asked. He held his assault rifle casually, but they could see his palm resting on the grip, the induction pad linked up. Clearly he'd picked up that something was wrong.
"Think of it like…. Imagine if Kai had gone into the clearing with shoulder length dreadlocks, and a full face beard, and that he'd looked like that since we woke up in those cages back in the mountains, ok?" Hunter nodded at Aswon. "Well, imagine now that he's back on the chopper, that all of a sudden he's shaved bald, top, back sides – the lot. All gone. It's still him – but he looks really different, and that's very unusual. But it really is him, as far as we can see." Hunter nodded, getting an idea of the scale and scope of change, but not feeling any better about it.
"Marius, how long until we get back?" Hunter called over his side link to Marius, nodding as he got the answer. It was going to be a long ninety minutes he feared, watching over Kai and making sure he didn't explode or suddenly turn on them. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he took note that Shimazu was resting his hand on the hilt of his sword still, and still looked very alert. Aswon at least had tucked the spear into the corner of the cabin, and was grabbing a cloth to wipe it down and clean the blood from the engravings, though he still kept an eye on Kai.
Tads finished her water bottle off, and pulled herself upright, quietly telling Aswon and Shimazu that she was going to summon some fresh guardians, seeing as the ones from dawn appeared to be expended. It took her less than a minute to call upon the spirits of the air and ask them to guard each member of the team again, and when she was done she rooted around in her pouch and pulled out some of the chocolate chip cookies Aswon had backed back at the ranch, before asking just what the hell had happened and how she was here…
Aswon answered, telling the tale from their point of view, and detailing their chase north, following the spirit and hoping it could track her astral trail, their journey through the swamp and then the short but intense fight at the end, against the four shapeshifters. When he finished, he took had a swig of water, wetting his mouth and asked her what had happened from her point of view.
"Before I get into that – I think it might be wise if both of you checked me out. Just to make sure I'm not going to do anything that would hurt us." Tads lowered her own masking, letting the others peer at her astral form, assense her spirit and check out her magical aura.
She was relieved when they both confirmed that she seemed fine, unchanged from how they expected to see her and remembered her aura. After finishing her cookie and brushing the crumbs off, she squirmed in her seat and got comfy, asking Aswon for more details on the crystal and the shards, and what had happened to Kai. She checked him over, but didn't spot any damage that needed healing, and she didn't want to pull off the pressure bandage that Shimazu had applied.
True to his word, Marius got them back to the base in ninety minutes, the tilt-wing rarely dropping below five hundred kilometres per hour. As they came in from the north side, Tads caught sight of the massive clearing and craters in the forest from the overlapping mortar strikes. Astral space was warped and twisted there, the death-screams of so much life ending in an instant polluting the land and making it unpleasant to witness. She swallowed, feeling her gorge rise, and mentioned what she could see, but nobody offered an explanation as to what had happened. She turned the prism away, scanning around the area and looked for signs of any spirits or astral activity – but the skies were clear without a trace of any hostile creatures.
"Say Tads, one of the free spirits was casting spells at people this morning, out on the parade ground. Can you see any signs of that?" Tads had a look, but couldn't see anything through the lens as the tilt-wing circled the base, checking it was clear to approach.
"I can't see anything, but it depends how powerful the spell was. We've been away for what, over four hours now? Chances are it will have faded away…"
"The one that was throwing those hailstorms around is still out there, I think. The one we saw getting ripped apart in the magical gateway, we're pretty certain it was the toxic hearth spirit. And I know – I didn't think hearth spirits could turn toxic either. Nasty, mean and with a short temper – absolutely. But hating and despising life, when it's the thing they're born from? No.
"If the base looks clear, I'm going to circle around to where the Condor went down, can you see if you can pick it up and we'll see about fixing it?" Marius' voice came over the speakers, and Hunter acknowledged, moving to the rear ramp and getting ready to pull the wreckage inside. With that done, they headed back to the hanger, aiming to land out front, just like they had when they arrived the previous night – which seemed like an age ago, already.
"Tads, if you're up for it – could we have some watcher spirits please, just out to patrol the perimeter. I'd feel better if we had a magical tripwire of some kind?" Tads nodded at Kai and summoned a few spirits, sending them off in each of the cardinal directions with orders to orbit the base and come to tell her if they saw anything magical. Assuming they didn't get the instructions wrong, that should give them a fairly frequent overlapping patrol path, and a good chance of noticing anything strange happening.
Marius bought to tilt-wing in for a gentle landing, noticing that there was a veritable hive of activity going on below, with air crew and troops moving around outside and lots of craft being moved about.
"Right folks, let's drop the gunners off and then have a little chat about what we're going to tell the Brigadier, shall we? And then we'll see about what to do next."
