Field report from the First Battle of Oxdal, Kasim Peynirci.

My unit has now retreated from the occupied village of Oxdal. Villagers have staged an uprising, and standing orders are to abandon at earliest need for strategic reasons. Primary goal already achieved – land opened for path of main invasion force. We will wait in the wilderness to rendezvous with the primary army before advancing again.

As a personal note, I look forward to when we rendezvous and come through Oxdal again. I just watched my friend die – a good lieutenant, too. I’ll gladly burn the homes of every last Valer who helped cause this to happen.

-Kasim Peynirci

Many weeks earlier

Some buds of flowering trees were already starting to appear and the early Spring air was crisp, a little cool, but in the invigorating way of that early part of the season. Badem Teke ran his hands along the branches of the trees, feeling the buds that would soon become fully-fledged flowers, purple and orange and green dotting the landscape.

Oxdal was at peace. It still didn’t feel real. It still made Badem smile just to think about that. Peace. In Oxdal. Peace and plenty, indeed, because when the Invictans had retreated they had left much of their supplies behind. Despite everything lost during the attack, and during the long occupation that followed, Oxdal was richer for now than it had been before. And, Badem had to admit, the Invictans knew how to make a good cigar. A few of the ones he’d found weren’t usable – they had blood on them, and even Badem wasn’t willing to taint his lungs with blood.

“What does it matter if it’s blood?” Melik had asked him. “It’s your kill, your loot, so it may as well be your blood, right?”

“You wouldn’t get it,” Badem had said in return. “You’re too young to understand.”

“Melik doesn’t like it when you say that.” Avishag. Leave it to her to tell you what someone else was thinking, even if you already knew, because she knew you were disregarding them either way.

“Oh, I know,” Badem said. “But trust me. You don’t want blood as much as you think you want it. Just trust me on that, alright.”

“Badem, you’re high.”

“Sure am.”

He stepped under the boughs of the trees. They weren’t formed yet, weren’t providing any proper shade. Only the patterned shadows cast by thin branches danced over Badem’s skin as he walked. He didn’t get far into the treeline before it occurred to him that he should turn and look back at the village. Every time he turned his back on it, the thought returned, like it or not. To keep his back turned to his home was a betrayal, one he’d have to amend soon enough. So he turned and looked back.

The shells of those houses which had burned or collapsed from explosions. The far more numerous structures that stood proud and unmoved by the violence. The indistinct forms of a hundred people weaving between buildings and abandoned Invictan war machines, the guards wielding weapons, a mixture of the old Wanderer-style gauntlets and repeating crossbows with Invictan rifles and spears. One of the guards caught Badem’s eye from across the field full of trees. Badem winced. The guard was Melik, watching the horizon with a desert owl’s vigilance.

Badem stood there for a minute, returning Melik’s stare across the plain. He turned back toward the trees – further away from the village, behind the slowly-opening blossoms, a few apple trees stood bright and tall, their golden fruit glistening in the early-morning light. Passing a tree, he reached up and twisted a fruit free, savoring the fraying snap of its stem. He lowered the fruit to his lips and bit. It was tart, like it was supposed to be. Yet it also tasted of smoke. He swallowed the apple chunk whole, then put a hand to his chest to still the discomfort as it forced its way down his throat.

“You’ve been acting really weird lately.”

Avishag sat with her back against the trunk of one of the apple trees, a pile of apples to her right and a pile of deconstructed Invictan equipment in front of her. In the pile Badem saw the edges of a few bladed weapons, or what had once been bladed weapons, but he also spied stripped wire, bolts and pistons and cases of things he didn’t care to identify. All deadly, probably. Everything a soldier carried was deadly.

“That’s funny,” Badem said, bending down next to Avishag. “I wouldn’t expect you to call me weird.”

“Why not?” she asked without looking up. “Because you think I’m weirder than you?”

“Weird is relative,” replied Badem with a shrug. “And besides, there’s no need to be so mean. There’s plenty of weird for all of us to go around!” He put on a big goofy grin and held up his hands, tousling his own tangled, wavy hair.

Avishag grunted noncommittally, reached into the pile and pulled out something faintly glowing. “Sure, sure. Whatever.”

“What’s that? It looks fancy.” Badem, still smiling – the expression bolted on his face – bent toward the object Avishag held up. She clasped it between two fingers and held it up for Badem to see. It was a translucent stone of some kind, carved like a gem earring and about the size of one as well. One tapered point became a hexagonal plane which tapered again, longer, to another point. It would have been an unremarkable stone if not for the faint, yet constant, glow that issued from it.

Avishag rolled the thing between her fingers, then grabbed Badem’s arm by the wrist and opened his hand. Before he could react, she’d placed the thing in his palm. The glow did not change, but Badem felt the thing’s touch. The sensation – it couldn’t be described as warmth, not exactly, but there was a power to the thing’s touch. Avishag smiled. “Okay, set it down in the grass.” He did so. The glow did not change. Avishag pushed herself up to a squat, took a few steps forward, and bent over the spot in the grass where the stone had been set. “I think this thing is some kind of power source. It’s in some of the Invictans’ devices – their weapons, but also their hypos.”

“Hypos?” Badem tilted his head.

“The medicine injectors they carry. We’ve got a whole stockpile of them, thankfully some were left over after treating all the wounded from the battle or else I wouldn’t have been able to analyze them intact. Anyway, I think I’ve seen schematics for a device like this.” She cupped her hands over the spot in the grass where the crystal lay, pushing aside the stems of purple flowers and shooing away a little bee that had come to collect its nectar.

“Look,” she said. “Look carefully.”

Badem looked at the stone, at the grass. He looked for a good long while.

“Uh…” Badem shrugged. “I’m not sure what I’m looking at, really…”

“Look at the tips of the blades of grass,” Avishag said.

Badem bent down. The effect was almost imperceptible, but…

“Ach, they’re growing! The grass is growing!”

Avishag snorted. “Yeah, it does that.” Then she scooped up the stone. “But you’re right, this thing’s presence seems to cause plants to grow faster when they are in contact with it. Which means… well, the potential applications are enormous. The implications could be huge!”

“That’s great!” Badem exclaimed. “So… how many of these things do you have?”

“Well, that’s the problem,” Avishag said, tapping her finger against her chin. “We only have a few of them intact, and their effect seems to be weak. I managed to pull some schematics onto the machine yesterday.”

“How? Communications have been down since –“

Avishag laughed aloud. “Who’s the Artifex here? I fixed the computer. The entire village can thank me later.”

“You’re not an Artifex yet, little swallow. That’s impressive, though. So what did you find out from those schematics?”

“These things are really common in Places of Refuge. Unfortunately, of course, the nearest one is –“

“- weeks of travel away from here, yeah. You’d better not be even considering running off on a chase like that. I won’t allow it. Your brother won’t allow it.”

“My brother can barely keep himself in check, let alone anybody else.”

Badem shrugged and smiled. “Well, that’s true, but that’s no excuse. Come on, Avishag, be responsible here.” He put on a show of pouting. “You wouldn’t run off into the wilderness and leave me and poor little Melik alone to fend for ourselves… would you?”

“’Course not,” she shot back. “Don’t be paranoid. But one of these days…” she tapped the gem against her chin. “One of these days we should check it out, that’s all I’m saying. There’s a lot we could learn, I think.”

“Yeah…” Badem took an apple from Avishag’s pile and took a bite from it. Just like the other, it tasted of smoke. He chewed, swallowed, sighed, looked off into the distant south. “You keep at that, little swallow. And Melik can keep doing what he’s doing. I’ll be here, no matter what, for both of you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Avishag said. “I know. You big goof.”

The air was cool and humid in the grove. The fresh apples, grown on smoky air, hung around Badem like the many eyes of a guardian angel, spreading its arms over him. The thought sent a chill through him, and he smiled.