The Cordite Tomb - a Cloudbreaker 100 Years of War story

“Move!” Alden Voss barked, his voice barely carrying over the howling desert winds.

Sand whipped by the rising winds burned against his exposed cheeks, limiting visibility even with his goggles lowered. The desert seemed to want his squad dead as much as the enemy that pursued them, raising a violent storm without warning that rolled toward them from the southeast horizon. Their north route was blocked by jagged rocks rising in sharp, wind-carved spires, but it was the enemy forces attacking from the west that worried Voss most.

Shin Lysander, one of Voss’ squad members, dropped to her belly in the sand and blind fired with her rifle at the dunes to the west. Her racking of the bolt was quick and precise, and with every crack of the shot, a spent casing launched from the chamber and landed in the shifting sands. Voss commanded his remaining four soldiers while Lysander provided a brief moment of cover.

“To the rocks!” he shouted, pointing at the jagged hills off in the distance. “Go!”

Sand spit up from her feet as Lysander climbed from her prone position and sprinted off with the team. In the moment after she was off, three sparkling spikes impacted the sand near where she lay. They were serrated and bore a silver-grey colour, like glass spikes with a core of steel. Voss looked at them as he turned to follow his squad, and then he cast a glance at the dune Lysander was firing at. Four dark forms were cresting the sand, shimmering in the heat and wind and hard to focus on through his goggles.

“Watch for javelin fire,” he called ahead to his team as he sprinted to follow. “Four in pursuit at least.”

Emmett Aquilla was second in the lead of the group, close on the heels of Hannibal Aldrige. Right after Voss’ warning, he began to zig-zag his pathway across the sand. He was fortunate to begin at the moment he did. A javelin spike whizzed across their heads and impacted the ground beside him. Had he not moved, the spike would have pierced the back of his right knee. The rest of the squad began the same evasive maneuvers immediately.

“How did they catch up so fast?” Zach Glass called out from just ahead of Lysander.

“Save your breath, Glass,” Voss shouted. “The silver-eyed dune rats know how to move in the sand. If you hope to see the north again, focus on making those ridges.”

Another javelin whistled in amongst the group and impacted the dunes without striking anyone. It seemed to make Voss’ point, and the squad continued to run as best they could across the dunes without saying another word. The more they ran, the farther the mountains seemed to be from them. And the sandstorm was roaring ever closer. When they crested a dune, they dropped to their seats on the other side and slid down the slope more than running.

By the time the squad was cresting the next dune, the sandstorm was upon them. It ripped away the sun and assaulted every bit of exposed skin, forcing them to kneel and draw covers across their heads and faces so that only their goggles poked out. They huddled up and set a plan under the howling of the winds. Vincent Reynard took the lead, and the rest followed in a line, each holding the shoulder of the person in front of them, with Voss taking up the rear. As difficult as the storm made their travel, Voss knew it would at least mean they had a reprieve from javelin fire, as the winds would make a shot impossible.

Onward they trudged in the fury of the storm. Darkness and the overwhelming howl of wind created a hellish environment that threatened to steal their courage at every step. Voss could barely make out the shape of Lysander in front of him. Had it not been for his hand on her shoulder, he would not have known she was there. He blinked instinctively as sand pelted against his goggles. The reddish tint of the world outside felt like everything was on fire, and they walked amid the flames.

Suddenly, Voss felt a double tap on the top of his hand that held Lysander’s shoulder. It was the signal to circle up. Reynard had seen something, or perhaps they had finally reached the foothills of the ridge. Voss squeezed Lysander’s shoulder to acknowledge and then lowered to a squat and moved forward. His team surrounded, leaning their heads in close in a circle. Voss pulled the cloth away from his face, cursing to himself at the immediate sting from the violent sandstorm.

“Report,” Voss called out.

“Structures ahead,” Reynard replied immediately.

“Did we reach the ridge?” Voss asked.

“Not sure,” Reynard was shaking his head. “We’re on a dune, but the other side drops off sharp, like the edge of a quarry. Tents below.”

“Friendly?” Aquilla asked.

Reynard shook his head. “No way to know.”

“Out here in the desert,” Voss began, spitting dust from his mouth as he did. “We assume every structure is Ciar K’Hen.”

“What do you want to do, Voss?” Lysander asked.

“We infiltrate,” Voss began. “Get out of this storm, and light-willing, maybe we’ll find a way to set an ambush for the rats nipping our tail. Reynard and Aldrige point the spear, the rest follow. Lysander and I have sentry.”

“Should we go blades?” Aldrige asked. “Do it silently?”

Voss shook his head and pointed up. “Storm will cover any pistol fire, but if you have a blade opportunity, use it.”

The others all nodded, and Lysander slung her rifle over her shoulder, securing it to her coat with a buckle. They all drew combat knives and untethered their pistols so they could be drawn if needed. Once ready, there was a silent nod, and the squad swept down the steep drop-off like phantoms in the storm. At the bottom of the slope, they found themselves on hard ground with a thin layer of sand covering the rock. A cluster of tents flapped in the violent winds, but they were all open-faced and filled with excavating tools from shovels to pry bars and rock saws.

As the squad moved through the quarry, they became aware of a looming shape barely visible in the storm ahead of them. It rose from the ground like a titan, darkening the already shadowed sky. They had reached the ridge. The whipping winds swirled around in the quarry as they met the immovable stone of the mountains. It was darker here, a result of the shadow of the rocks and the storm. They crept forward step by step, making their way toward the hills, until a larger structure appeared before them. It was not a tent, but a building. Wood and metal walls. Single story. No windows.

Voss and the others crept up and pressed their backs against the wall, following it along until they found a doorway. They stacked up along the way beside the door, Reynard and Aldrige still leading the way, and on the order of Voss, they breached. The door kicked in easily, and the squadron found themselves in the midst of a small warehouse filled with crates, both open and closed. There was a table to the left with maps and scrolls and a stack of old books. To their right was a round table with an oil lantern sitting in the center. Around the table sat three women and one man.

In a tense moment, Voss’ team and the people at the table simply stared at one another. The wind outside was dampened within the building, but whistled and howled nonetheless through the open door. Voss’ team were all in aggressive stances, knives held out and hands on pistols in their holsters. The team at the table was nonchalant. They never made a move, just sat still and stared at the newcomers in surprise; or shock.

Voss was the first to relax and step forward, holding his hands up to show compliance, and moving slowly and deliberately. He sheathed his knife and reached up to remove the fabric covering his face. Then he lifted his goggles. One of the women at the table, a tall woman with shining red hair, stood slowly also. As Voss addressed her, his team followed suit with sheathing their weapons and relaxing. Lysander closed the door behind them, and the sounds of the storm became a whisper.

“You’re not Ciar K’Hen,” Voss said as he stepped toward the table.

“Neither are you,” the red-haired woman replied. “My name is Eliza Thorne. Professor of Archaeology, Empyrean Academy of Akoy. And you are?”

“Lance Marshall Alden Voss, 4^th light infantry recon, Allied Armed Forces.”

“A spear team?” Eliza asked.

“That’s right,” Voss responded. “We were ambushed and our convoy destroyed. We were lucky to find you in this storm.”

“Luck for you,” Eliza said. “Unlucky for us. Were you followed?”

Voss hesitated. He realized the others of Eliza’s team were glaring at him. He had been so relieved to find allies that he overlooked the enigma of the situation. His eyes glanced around the warehouse, noting the crates and the relics that Eliza’s team had been packing into them. Voss returned his attention to Eliza.

“What are you doing here, professor?” Voss asked.

“Not important,” she hissed. “Were you followed?”

Voss shifted his position and indicated one of the crates nearby. “Why is an Akoyan professor leading an expedition so deep in enemy territory without a security force?”

“It’s better not to draw attention to ourselves, Lance Marshall,” Eliza replied. There was venom in her voice as she asked her question again. “Were you followed.”

Just as Voss opened his mouth to respond, the answer came in the form of an explosion that ripped open the front of the warehouse where the door was, sending shrapnel and fire into the space. The storm followed, turning the quiet tension into immediate chaos. Eliza dove for cover near some of her crates to the back of the warehouse, and Voss turned to face the blown-open wall. Aldrige lay face down near the wreckage of the wall. His back was charred and bleeding, and even with the storm blowing in and the sudden surge of action, Voss could see he was dead.

“Find cover!” Voss called out.

Glass turned to his left to make for what remained of the wall, but before he could reach it, a javelin buried itself in his chest, followed by a second one that passed clean through his abdomen and hit the centre of the table Eliza’s team had been sitting at. Two more javelins soared in, one of which skewered the neck of one of the women still sitting at the table, who had been unable to act fast enough. Voss instinctively reached out and grabbed Glass by the shoulder of his jacket. He started dragging him to the safety of cover, while at the same time firing his pistol outside into the storm.

A Ciar K’Hen pursuer raced in through the opening in the wall, but failed to notice Lysander hiding against the debris. Her knife sank into his chest in two quick successions, and he fell to the ground, choking on his own blood. In a fluid motion, she unclipped her rifle sling and rolled it off her shoulder, firing a shot point-blank into the head of another enemy as he entered the room. Aquilla and Reynard had found cover behind crates and were firing at shapes outside the wall as they moved in the storm.

Voss knelt beside Glass and watched as the man took his last breaths, his eyes rolling back into his head as a stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. The Lance Marshall gritted his teeth and then turned at a noise behind him, firing two shots into the centre mass of a shape about to charge through the opening of the wall. Javelins whizzed by, making a signature whistling sound as the jagged and uneven missiles cut through the air. There was a scream, and Voss realized another of Eliza’s team had been the unfortunate victim of the savage projectiles.

“Fall back,” Voss called out to his team. “Lysander, find us a way out of here. Reynard and Aquilla cover. Go!”

Lysander dropped to a crouch and sprinted toward the rear of the building, vaulting over crates as she did. Eliza watched her pass by and turned to shout at Voss.

“There’s no way out back there! The warehouse is built against the rock face.”

Voss sprinted to the crate Eliza was hiding behind, noting that she only had one remaining member of her team who was currently wailing at the side of the woman who was speared in the neck. He took position behind the crate, using the top of it to brace himself as he aimed his pistol at the breach in the wall. When he called out, Reynard and Aquilla fell back to similar positions. A shape appeared in the blowing sand outside, and Voss fired at it, causing the shape to collapse to the ground in a heap. There were fewer and fewer targets to shoot at, and fewer attempts at incursion, but Voss was not feeling relieved by that. Lysander slid up beside them.

“No way out back there, Voss,” she said. “Just rock and scaffold.”

Voss turned his attention to Eliza while Lysander took his spot with her rifle.

“Is there another way out of this building?” he asked.

Eliza shook her head. She was looking at her last surviving colleague, so Voss followed her eyeline. Just as he did, a large object clattered into the space and rolled to a stop near the weeping man. The man looked down at it, and Voss did also. There was a wick burning.

“Ordinance!” Voss shouted as he grabbed Eliza and yanked her away. His team immediately scattered toward the back of the room. The bright light and impact on the air were the last things Voss remembered.

Pain shot through his body when Voss regained consciousness. Lysander was near him, helping Reynard dig him out of rubble that covered the lower half of his body. Aquilla was nearby, also, tending to a wound on Eliza’s forehead. Voss groaned and tried to sit up, but Lysander held him down.

“Easy, Voss,” she said. “Let us dig you out first. Make sure you’re okay.”

“What happened?” Voss asked.

“Ordinance caved in the floor,” Reynard answered. “Dropped us into some kind of cave below the quarry.”

“Did we lose anyone else?” Voss breathed heavily.

Reynard shook his head. “Glass and Aldrige didn’t make it. None of the professor’s team, either.”

“Professor Thorne,” Voss said, still lying on the ground. “I don’t suppose you knew these caves were here, or how to get out?”

Eliza looked around, the only light in the cave coming from a few luminescent mushrooms in the dark and a makeshift torch that Aquilla had built. She seemed shocked, but it may also have been wonder. It was hard for Voss to read her emotions while her eyes were hidden under her goggles. Voss furrowed his eyebrows at that. She was still wearing her tinted goggles, even though they were underground in low light. He wrote it off as shock. She was not a soldier; she was a scientist, and he had been responsible for getting her entire team killed. He had led the pursuers directly to her, but how could he have known?

Eliza sighed and turned to face Voss as Aquilla finished cleaning the wound on her forehead. “We hoped they were here, Lance Marshall. Under better circumstances, this would have been the discovery of a lifetime.”

Lysander scoffed. “There are a lot of caves in the world.”

Eliza did not reply; she simply nodded her thanks to Aquilla and stood.

Voss coughed and wafted his hand in front of his face. “Light, all I can smell is cordite.”

“They hit us with pretty big ordnance,” Lysander replied. “I’m not surprised that’s in your nose. You were closest to it.”

Reynard dropped one last rock to the side and clapped his hands together to knock off the dust. He bent and hooked his arm under Voss’ shoulder.

“Can you stand?” Reynard asked.

Voss grunted as he stood to his feet with Reynard’s help. His weight felt awkward, like he had a brutal muscle cramp in his right thigh, but he could stand. He walked in a circle to gauge his movement, finding he had to walk with a limp but could still ambulate on his own. When at last he felt comfortable with it, he moved to stand beside Aquilla and Eliza, who were both looking deeper into the darkness of the cave where specs of bioluminescent fungi were like a tunnel of stars in the darkness. Behind them, rubble from the collapse of the warehouse blocked all hope of escape.

“Guess the only way out is through,” Voss said. “Check arms. Let’s get another torch going. Lysander, you’ll be the point, Aquilla sentry. I’ll be middle with the professor.”

The squad nodded and set to work stripping their gear and taking stock of weapons and ammunition. Lysander was down to only four rounds for her rifle, and between them, there were only eight rounds for the pistols. Reynard was the only one without his knife, and Eliza was unarmed. After they finished making a second torch, they took their ordered positions and began to make their way deeper into the cave.

The original chamber where the cave-in occurred was quite large. It seemed ancient and crystalline, without any stalactite or stalagmite formations at all. There was a must to the air, old and stale. Voss wondered how a cave in the desert without any water presence could host life, yet as they approached the narrow corridor at the end of the chamber, they found themselves stepping over a myriad of strange fungal growths and mushrooms.

The fungi ranged from short stalks of beige with brown caps, to tall shimmering spires of green and red that reached their waists in height as they passed. The latter were most often the ones that emitted the faint glow, especially from underneath, as though they were living lanterns. Voss noted that Eliza was giving them a wide berth, but showed intense curiosity also.

“Ever see anything like that, professor?” Voss asked, motioning to a purple mushroom that bathed the rock below it in iridescent light.

Eliza shook her head without speaking. At the head of the line, Lysander was approaching the mouth of the corridor, but had stopped to inspect some fungus growing from the wall that was round without any stalk. She held her torch out to get a better look as the rest of the group caught up behind her.

“This one seems to be undulating,” Lysander said as she leaned closer. “It’s moving. Like a balloon full of water.”

Reynard was the closest to her and was just approaching when the fungus suddenly burst, spraying ichor and a cloud of spores all over Lysander. The torch she held flickered and sparked as the material made contact with the flames. Reynard halted like they were under attack and backed a half step, bumping into Eliza. Lysander waved the torch through the air, sputtering and spitting while she fanned away the spores. She coughed and spit, using her free hand to wipe away some fungal material that had landed on her face.

“Lysander,” Voss called out. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied, still spitting. “Tasted disgusting though.”

Eliza stepped past Reynard and knelt, examining the bits of fungus that lay on the cave floor after the eruption. The bits seemed to be steaming and blistering.

“It’s reacting to the light,” Eliza said.

Voss stepped forward and looked down at the fungus, and then examined Lysander. She appeared completely unharmed, if only a little grossed out.

“Okay,” Voss said. “Let’s move on. Lysander and Aquilla, keep the torches away from those balls.”

Fortunately for the group, they encountered no other fungi at all once they entered the corridor. The walls were so narrow in spots that they had to shimmy through sideways in single file before they reached another tiny chamber that led off sharply to their right in another even more narrow corridor. Lysander opted to allow Reynard to take point during that traversal. She suffered a bit of claustrophobia, and it made her feel better not to be point. When it came time for Voss to go through, he actually had to suck in his chest and take shallow breaths to slip through the narrow gap. When he finally found himself out of the gap and into another chamber, he was shocked to discover it was not a natural space.

The room was square and carved directly from the rock, with the floor also carved out to resemble cobblestone. Four pillars connected the floor to the ceiling at each corner of the square space, and just above eye level was an iron torch bracket set into the stone. Unfortunately, all the brackets were empty. As Aquilla made his way into the space as the last in the line, the team split up to examine the room. Voss made his way to the centre and stood beside Eliza.

“What is this place, professor?” Voss asked.

“A temple,” she replied, her unreadable eyes scanning the room from behind her goggles.

“Pretty unsettling for a temple,” Voss said as he watched Lysander and Aquilla lifting their torches to examine the walls.

“Not all people worship the light, Lance Marshall.”

“Is this for some Ciar K’Hen God then?”

“No, Lance Marshall,” Eliza whispered. “This is much older than them.”

Reynard cried out suddenly, his shriek echoing in the chamber. He was on the left side of the room, opposite where Lysander and Aquilla stood with their torches. He was on his feet but was writhing uncontrollably, reaching over his shoulders and around to his back feverishly. The team rushed to him, but stopped when the torchlight illuminated his plight. Voss froze.

Reynard had fallen to his knees facing the wall, but was still trying to reach his back. His screaming had fallen to little more than a pained grunt, and the movement in his arms was jittery and almost inorganic. At the centre of his back, perched beneath the nape of his neck, was a creature resembling a shiny scorpion but the size of a large house cat. Its stinger was curled in and embedded in Reynard’s spine, while its legs and pinchers were locked into his clothing and his flesh. There was a sack just beyond the needle that was stuck into Reynard, and it was pulsing.

“What in the light is that?” Lysander screamed.

Aquilla moved to step forward, but it was Eliza who called out.

“You can’t help him!” She yelled, stopping everyone in their tracks. Voss whirled on her, and she sighed.

“You can’t help him,” she repeated, softer this time. “It’s laying eggs in his spinal column. We have to go. There will be more.”

A chittering sound behind the wall beyond Reynard marked her final words.

“Everyone move,” Voss started before raising his voice to a yell. “Go!”

The team sprinted across to the right side of the room, opposite where Reynard had fallen. There was a narrow passage that led into another room with an ancient, decaying tapestry on the floor. Aquilla had moved out ahead of everyone else, with Lysander following close behind and then Voss and Eliza at the rear. Voss had hesitated before running. He was struggling with the memory of the creature attached to Reynard’s back, pulsing its young into his spinal fluid. He was so lost in the shock that he barely registered Aquilla’s scream and Eliza’s hands on his chest, stopping him from running into Lysander, who had also stopped suddenly at the edge of the next room.

Aquilla was thrashing in the centre of the room. The tapestry on the floor was with him. Both had fallen into a pool of some sort of liquid, giving off a horrid vapour and a scent like death itself. The liquid was bubbling all around Aquilla and the tapestry, and his skin and the cloth of his clothes were sloughing off and dissolving like bread in boiling water.

“Acid trap,” Eliza said. She was shaking.

Voss gritted his teeth. “What in the light is this place?”

The chittering from behind them prevented an answer. Lysander immediately jumped to her left and started shimmying along the wall.

“This way,” Lysander said. “There’s enough space to get around if we hug the wall.”

Eliza followed Lysander around the pool while Voss did the same. Aquilla had stopped thrashing and was now floating in the middle of the pool. Most of his face and arm that could be seen through the churn had melted down to the bone in spots. Voss could not take his eyes off the sight as he shuffled along the wall.

When they reached a corner on their right, they were able to shuffle along the other side to the entrance for yet another corridor. Thankfully, this one had a door, and once Voss was through, he hesitated a moment to take one final look at Aquilla’s body, and then he slammed the heavy wooden door shut and barred it with the old rusty latch it had.

Voss was desperately trying to control his breathing. His leg ached. He pounded his fist against the door, and then his forehead followed. He could not help but wonder if dying against the Ciar K’Hen in the desert would have been preferable to this. Lysander's coughing brought him back, and he wiped his face with his hand before turning around.

Eliza was standing beside Lysander and watching her with concern. They were in the largest chamber they had found yet. This one, like the others, was carved from the stone, only significantly larger and more ornate, with reliefs and statues adorning the walls and the six pillars to either side of the room. At the far end of the space was a huge stone altar, and behind it a crystal vein unlike anything Voss had ever heard of or seen in his life.

“I’m okay,” Lysander said, brushing off Eliza’s concern. “Just a lot of dust in my lungs.”

Voss approached the two women and stood beside them. It was almost like the action of him doing so caused them to survey the room for the first time also. Eliza gasped.

“It’s real,” she breathed, and took a step toward the altar. Voss reached out and grabbed her arm, spinning her around.

“Enough,” Voss shouted. “Tell the truth. Who are you? What is this place?”

Eliza looked at him but ignored his outburst, turning back to face the crystal as if he were a child having a temper tantrum.

“This,” she began. “This is a temple of Etmiel.”

Voss released Eliza’s arm.

“You lie.”

Eliza pointed at the altar and the vein of striking blue crystal that grew from the stone wall behind it. Voss followed her finger, and it was like the crystal swallowed his vision. There was light within its structure, an ever-shifting storm of faint energy casting faint blue and white illumination through its otherwise glassy appearance.

“That is a Tear of Etmiel.”

Voss began to approach the altar, with Eliza walking alongside him and Lysander behind.

“You are Akoyan, yes?” Eliza asked.

Voss nodded.

“So Etmiel is known to you. Part of your pantheon. But would it surprise you to know that your Goddess of the Wild is older than Akoy? Older than the Ciar K’Hen and all the kingdoms?”

The group reached the altar, which was a large slab of marble ornately carved and moved with great care to be placed before the crystal vein. All around the crystal, plants that should have been impossible to grow without sunlight and water flourished. Vines crawled up the wall, their yellow flowers blooming even in the darkness, shining when the torchlight touched them. The air near the altar was fresh, like a spring deep in an old forest.

“How is this possible?” Voss asked, indicating the abundance of life near the crystal.

“You should know this,” Eliza replied. “Tears of Etmiel are the crystal essence of Etmiel herself. The Goddess of the Wilds can bring and shape life anywhere.”

Lysander coughed, and the torchlight flickered. The reflection of metal caught Voss’ attention. There were old rusty chains set into the marble slab, with cuffs at the ends of them. Dark black stains on the marble surface hinted at something ominous, and Voss felt a pain in the pit of his stomach.

“Professor,” Voss hissed. “Take off your goggles.”

“Why?” Came Eliza’s voice, which seemed to be echoing off the walls. Voss realized he had no idea where she had gone.

“Show yourself!” Voss called, drawing his pistol.

“You have bigger things to worry about,” came the phantom reply.

“Lysander, are you with me?”

A chittering sound filled the space.

“Lysander?” Voss asked, turning to face his last companion.

Lysander stood there beside him. Unmoving. Her face had gone ashen, her hand frozen holding up the torch. She blinked and looked at Voss, coughing violently, before dropping the torch. Her eyes went wide, and she coughed again, blood spraying out of her mouth. She grasped at her chest, tearing the fabric open and exposing her breasts a moment before her entire ribcage burst outward in a shower of gore and the birth of a new fungal colony. Her body fell backward with a thud, torchlight glinting off the wet mushroom stalks rising from her chest.

“The Goddess of the Wild can bring and shape life anywhere,” Eliza echoed, as if she were speaking through the stone itself.

Voss stepped backward. The chittering was becoming louder. Closer. He stepped back again, scanning the room for any target he could shoot with his remaining ammunition.

“To harvest a Tear of Etmiel,” Eliza continued.

Voss retreated further.

“Takes life.”

Voss stopped. He understood. All of a sudden, he knew. He looked down at his feet. He was standing on the altar. His gaze drifted to Lysander’s corpse. Her rifle was missing. He never heard the shot.

            Eliza Thorne stretched her shoulder out and lifted her face to the desert sun. Her red hair flicked in the gentle breeze, looking like the flames of a fire. The sands of the desert were calm now, and she stood alone with empty horizons in every direction. A trail of prints along the dune ridges behind her was the only proof she was ever here, and soon the desert would brush them away like dirt broomed from a floor. She shifted the rifle she carried up onto her shoulder, noting the small metal clasp on the sling that was digging into her. She shrugged and dropped the rifle to the sand. She had no more need of it.

            She reached into a satchel at her hip, lifting out a sizeable chunk of blue crystal that extended far past her palm. Within its glassy form, a storm of blue and white energy pulsed. Eliza reached up, lifting her goggles to the top of her forehead. Her eyes scanned the crystal. Irises of silver, like living metal. The crystal reflected in them, and Eliza Thorne smiled.