The Primal War : First Elements Saga Book 1

Chapter 3: A Road Paved in Fire

Then he was refocusing on the man, who continued to make pushing away motions with his hands as if he could somehow push the man of fire back into the flames. Eyes narrowing, he concentrated on what the man was saying. Was that a version of Farsi that was called Dari, one of the most common of the many dialects spoken in Afghanistan? He seemed to remember it from at least a dozen different briefs on the Taliban and the current instability in that part of the world, his sped-up thoughts suddenly gifted with perfect recall.

Yes, the man was speaking Dari. Which meant he was in Afghanistan somewhere, in their mountains. Somehow, by walking a short distance on the plane of fire, he had traveled a distance of twelve thousand, eight hundred kilometers. Instantly.

Again he paused to digest that. How was it that a handful of steps in an elemental plane allowed him to travel that distance? It was like he was hopping from one fire, the one in Chenoa’s meditation chamber, to this camp fire in the mountains of Afghanistan, with the plane connecting the two points together.

The thought made him look back at the campfire. And, yet again, he found it pulling him in with almost no ability to resist its siren’s call.

Still, Marcus was almost relieved to be back on the plane of fire instead of some cold plateau thousands of kilometers from the Briar Patch. Which, of course, as he slowly turned in a circle and watched new flames pop up almost continuously, made him wonder how he was going to get back there.

One, in particular, caught his attention. It was massive, a monster amongst its peers, giving him the impression that it hungered, no, it needed to feed, that it needed to conquer. Before he could stop himself, he was walking towards it, focusing on its powerful presence as he did. And, in that same strange pulling sensation, he was being yanked into the seething flame. Blink. Blink. Blink.

The smoke eater took a step back, arm in front of his face and his Polaski tool in the other as a sudden surge in the flames consuming the stand of pine trees in front of him threatened to jump over top of him to the stand he was trying to dig a fire break in front of, where the rest of his twenty man team were feverishly working to prevent this part of the complex from laddering around them.

“Dee Five to Command,” he shouted into the mike hanging close to his mouth.

“I got you, Brad. What’s your situation?” a tired but determined voice said into his ear.

“We’ve got an aggressive element on the fire edge that is trying to do a running crown over our fire break, Kyle! We need reinforcement or this fire is going to go right over top of us into sector nine bee!!”

“Those boys from Montana are close, and so are the Kiwis, Brad,” Kyle replied. “I’m sending both your way now! Be advised, Air Tactical says their bomber is five minutes from refill down at Ness Lake. Then they’ll be on station in fifteen. You need to hold for twenty.”

“Roger that. I’m falling back to our break point to restart my line and update my team boss.” Then he was turning to run towards the stand behind him as the inferno at his back snarled its fury.

At least, he meant to. He didn’t, because when he turned, he found a person made out of pure fire standing not a meter and a half from him. Stumbling to a halt, he threw up his P-tool protectively in front of himself.

“I, I don’t know what you are, man. But I just want to get somewhere safe!” he stammered as the man of fire focused two bright eyes of pure white on him.

Those eyes then swung off him and to the flames behind him, burning out of control as it chewed through this part of the crown land forest just south of the town of Prince George, one of the larger municipalities in the interior of the Province of British Columbia, Canada. Thousands of hectares were already torched, and this forest fire showed no signs of slowing down.