Darksiders: The Abomination Vault

by Ari Marmell

  The Horsemen, frankly, were almost superfluous—not that either of them gave any thought to hanging back. War treated the affair more as exercise than battle; he waded through the thickest of the enemy, letting stone claws and brass blades rebound impotently from his armor. Chaoseater rose and fell with an almost monotonous precision, leaving only rubble in its wake.

  And Death … Death amused himself by clearing those ravines of constructs that had managed to survive everything else hurled their way. In leaps and bounds he passed into and out of crevices faster than the things inside could respond, and each time he left fewer of the living behind. Harvester flashed, singly and in pairs, as scythe or knife or spear as befit the width of any particular cleft. Eventually he borrowed a cannon from one of the angels and began clearing out huge swaths of each fissure at once—not because he needed to, but simply because he was growing a tad bored with it all.

  This couldn’t possibly be the full extent of Hadrimon’s and Belisatra’s efforts; he’d faced more than this at the Crowfather’s temple, as had the angels at the gates of Eden. Either they had multiple bands working on the Ravaiim homeworld at once, or the bulk of their forces hadn’t yet arrived.

  Neither was an option that Death particularly enjoyed contemplating. Time to wrap this up and figure out what was going on.

  He leapt up from the last crevice, casually tossing the cannon back to its rightful owner, and examined the field. Only a score or so of the constructs remained, and they had been backed into a couple of awkward pockets, easy pickings for the surrounding angels. None of the cauldron-like machines survived; Death reminded himself to check the wreckage, to make sure the enemy couldn’t salvage even a drop of Ravaiim blood.

  The angels themselves had lost only three of their number. It was an impressive showing, given the numbers they’d faced—even considering how utterly they overpowered the foe on an individual level.

  Impressive … and easy. Death’s unease grew stronger.

  It was an unease that his brother clearly shared. War appeared at his shoulder and, without preamble, said, “It can’t be a trap. They’d have sprung it by now. Are they truly foolish enough to spread their forces out so thin?”

  “I haven’t seen a great deal of tactical acumen in their previous efforts, but no, I do not believe they’re that careless. Either this was a test meant to gauge our strength, or the bulk of their army is occupied elsewhere, or—”

  Whatever he’d intended to suggest, Death’s or effectively became or we can worry about it later. Because it was at that moment that the Horsemen and their angelic allies learned that the armies of Belisatra and Hadrimon were not their only competition for the blood of the Ravaiim.

  Once more the forces of Hell had found them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THEIR FIRST WARNING CAME AS A LOW UNDULATION IN the earth. Not the simple vibrations of marching or running footsteps, this, but a tensing and flexing of the crust as though it cringed from some loathsome contact. The Horsemen, and all the angels not currently in flight, swayed with the unnatural palpitations. Even the surviving constructs, despite their utter lack of facial features or even recognizable heads, managed to convey a vague sense of unease as they braced themselves, skittering about to peer in all directions.

  Next was the sound: a terrible, endless din, high and low, shrieking and roaring. A choir of lunatics, chanting hymns as they slowly drowned beneath the crashing waves, might have produced a similar blend of tones.

  And then the ground was shaking and shuddering with the tromp of an approaching horde, utterly obliterating any trace of the earlier, more subtle fluctuations. Along with that new, more violent tremor, a stench began to permeate the air around them, somehow carried not on, but ahead of, the desultory breeze. A stench, or rather a combination of stenches: the thick, coppery tang of blood; an animal aroma of musk and shit; the acrid fetor of sweat …

  And brimstone. Underlying it, intertwined with all else like a writhing lover, the overwhelming reek of brimstone.

  “How?” The steel of War’s gauntlets actually began to warp between his ever-tightening grip and Chaoseater’s indestructible hilt. “How could they have known to find us here?”

  “It could be worse,” Death said softly. “On any other world, they could have appeared right on top of us.”

  War might have offered a response to that, had the other not at that moment reached back to unclip something from his belt. The fist on Chaoseater clenched harder yet. “I’m still not convinced it was wise to bring that, brother.”

  Death slipped his left hand into the gauntlet, which fastened about his forearm with an ominous click. The fanged maw and single eye both quivered once, all but unnoticeably, before falling still once more. “We’ve been through this. It caught me unprepared last time, that’s all. Now that I know to be on my guard, it’s simplicity itself for me to ward my mind against any further probing. And while Mortis may be almost dead, it retains some power. We’ll need every advantage we can muster.”

  Again, War would almost certainly have argued further. Conversation swiftly became impossible, however, washed away beneath a torrent of shouted orders from Azrael and Ezgati, and equally loud acknowledgments from the other angels. The Redemption cannons were swiftly positioned along the tops of the various crevices, angels crouched behind them waiting for the enemy to step into range. Over half the soldiers had taken to the air and spread themselves wide, presenting only small, scattered targets while covering multiple angles of fire with their halberds.

  Those angels armed only with—or with a strong preference for—more intimate weapons moved out in groups of three, again positioning themselves so that no single blast or barrage could easily target more than one trio at a time. There were no roads to guard, and the plains were too flat and expansive to provide convenient bottlenecks. Still, the soldiers posted themselves as strategically as they could, hoping at least to encourage the coming foe to charge into the cannoneers’ line of fire.

  And Azrael, of course, raised his magics, once again cloaking his forces in an image of thickened, swirling fumes. It wouldn’t fool the demons for long, but it should at least buy the angels an opening salvo or two.

  Belisatra’s surviving constructs fled, and the angels allowed them to go. So long as they posed no immediate threat, the soldiers of the White City couldn’t afford the time or manpower it would take to hunt them down and finish them.

  It was, all told, an impressive display of battlefield discipline; the angels had regrouped and deployed a makeshift defensive line in mere moments.

  A good thing, that, since moments were all they had. The haze grew dark, thickened by an array of half-obscured shapes, and the demons were upon them.

  The Knights of Perdition appeared first, having pulled ahead of their allies atop their gruesome steeds. Inhuman crusaders encased head-to-toe in scored and rusted armor, Hell’s answer to the Horsemen themselves, wielded mighty falchions broad enough to cleave their own mounts in a single blow. Those steeds stamped and snorted, shedding blue flame from hooves and nostrils, their flesh as torn and ragged as Despair’s. Where the wounds on Death’s steed seemed old and desiccated, however, these bled freely, dribbling strands of crimson to sizzle and smoke in the fires below.

  They paused, mounts rearing, thrown for only an instant by Azrael’s illusion and the apparent vacancy of the plains. And in that instant, the angels opened fire.

  The halberds failed, for the most part, to penetrate the infernal armor, delivering bruises and abrasions at best. The Redemption cannons, however, proved rather more productive; several of the riders were hurled back in smoking heaps of rent flesh and twisted metal, and a handful of the horses literally fell apart beneath the barrage. How much of the earsplitting keening was rider, how much was horse, and how much the crumpling steel, none could say with any certainty.

  Even before the first casualties had finished twitching, the demonic Knights responded in kind. Azure fire swirled about
them, crackling and snapping across their swords, their arms. Then in the blink of an eye those forces shot downward, melding with the blue flames of the horses’ hooves, and raced across the earth in a fearsome torrent. Most of the angels sheltering within the ravines, crouched behind Redemption cannons, were able to hurl themselves aside and evade the worst of the profane energies. Most—not all. Roughly a quarter of the White City cannoneers were blasted from their posts, armor melted to flesh and flesh cooked from bone by the blazing Hellfire.

  The soldiers above redoubled their assault, but again only a few of the halberd shots came near to penetrating the Knights’ corroded armor. The demon crusaders might be unable to strike back against their flying foes—their unholy blasts seemed capable only of traveling across the earth—but the angels above proved almost as ineffective.

  The fumes flowed and shifted yet again; the Knights of Perdition were no longer alone, and the angels no longer owned the skies. Duskwings soared on leather membranes, envenomed tails whipping about with maniacal fury. Alongside them, writhing and slithering through the air in defiance of all natural law, came four-armed demons half humanoid and half serpent. Great tusked maws gaped in silent laughter, horns and matted hair swept from monstrous skulls, and in their taloned hands they crafted globules of bile-green flame. These they hurled with horrific speed, and though their hellish missiles lacked the power of the Knights’ own magics, there seemed no end to the constant barrage.

  Even more demons surged over the rough terrain, spreading out around and behind the riders. Humanoid, serpentine, quadruped, and others, they marched, ran, skittered, and loped toward the heavenly host. The Knights of Perdition spurred their mounts, leading the charge—and the angels, careful to leave corridors of fire open for their cannon-armed comrades, charged to meet them.

  War was with them every step of the way, Chaoseater raised, cloak streaming behind him as though inspired by the wings of his allies. Death, however … hesitated.

  Not from fear, nor uncertainty. No, the Horseman peered intently into the airborne flakes and haze, struggling for a second glimpse of something he thought he’d seen …

  And there it was, almost obscured by the gritty atmosphere, lurking in the rearmost ranks of the demonic throng. Something tall, horrifically bulky, possessed of wings as magnificent as the angels’ own but far uglier—almost as bat-like as those of the duskwings, despite the tattered ivory feathers that adorned their expanse in ragged patches. A tail, cruelly barbed, twitched behind the creature, as idly as a cat’s. From here, Death could not see the heavy, twisted horns protruding from a pallid, waxen face, but he knew they would be there, just as he knew precisely what sort of demon led this motley horde of Hell’s terrors.

  Such creatures were among the most potent soldiers of the Pit, and certainly the most poignant—for it was this form into which angels almost invariably twisted, mutated, should they plummet from Heaven’s graces, succumb too long to the temptations of Hell’s most vile perversities.

  All this Death saw, and seeing, he could only wonder.

  It couldn’t be her. Out of all the Lost Angels, of all the many demons making themselves as available as soldiers beyond the borders of Hell, it couldn’t be her!

  Could it? The odds against such a coincidence were surely astronomical.

  Unless it was no coincidence at all.

  The profaned angel—whoever it might once have been—drifted backward on outstretched wings, until even the Horseman’s potent senses could no longer detect it within the heavy fumes. Brow furrowed in thought behind his immobile mask, Death hefted his own weapon and darted ahead to join the others in battle.

  FROM HIGH ABOVE, out of immediate danger but near enough to keep track of all that occurred, Azrael watched the exchange of fire and the abrupt collision of opposing forces. Most angelic commanders would be down there, shoulder-to-shoulder and wingtip-to-wingtip with their soldiers, wielding blade or gun against the foe. Even the lifelong scholar’s blood pounded at the thought, his militant heritage surging within his soul.

  Brutally, he forced it down. He had his own strengths, his own contributions to make, and none of them involved getting in the way of warriors with far more acumen than he. Instead, Azrael raised his hands high and began to call upon the magics that only he, among all the scions of Heaven, possessed.

  “Be ready.” He barely spoke, yet the soldiers with whom he’d orchestrated this maneuver heard him clearly, his words carried to them on eldritch currents. “We begin … Now!”

  At Azrael’s command, the skies burned. Columns of roaring flame, white and blinding, infused with the sacred essence of Heaven itself, twisted down to strike at the various masses of demons. Three, four, five of them touched the earth, crackling, howling—and the demons scattered, howling in turn.

  By the time the slowest of Hell’s soldiers, those unable to avoid the blazing pillars, could realize that they were unharmed—that the entire firestorm was nothing but another of the scholar’s illusions—their swifter companions had already broken formation and put themselves at the mercy of the White City’s gunners.

  Redemption cannons spoke, over and over, blasting the more potent demons, leaders and elite soldiers, who would otherwise have proved difficult to reach through the ranks of lesser minions. Halberds barked from above, cutting down those weaker creatures whose defenses were not so impenetrable as the Knights’. Many demons fell, then and there, to the carefully aimed weapons of a relatively small band of angels.

  The Knights of Perdition and other commanders instantly called their soldiers back, gathering them once more into tight formation—or at least, as tight as the generally unpredictable and undisciplined creatures of Hell could manage. Once again they surged forward, closing on the outnumbered angelic line.

  Again Azrael summoned fire from on high. This time, the demons knew better than to scatter and expose themselves in the face of an illusory attack.

  This time, of course, the sacred flame was real.

  Demons burned by the score, charred to ash and less than ash, and Azrael could only smile at his soldiers’ cheers.

  WAR STOOD AT THE FOREFRONT, where the converging forces would meet, all but daring the enemy to attack him. His cloak swirled, tossed about in a breeze created mainly by the rapidly passing bodies, and Chaoseater gleamed darkly beside him. He didn’t even bother striking at the lesser demons that dashed or flitted past him, choosing to leave them for the angels, and they, in turn, knew better than to draw his attentions. War was the greatest threat on the field of battle—well, one of the two—and certainly the most overt. He waited, his pulse quickening, for the forces of Hell to respond in kind.

  And respond they did. From out of the dust clouds came the thunder of hooves, presaging the arrival of the Knights of Perdition.

  Among the most fearsome of the warriors present, these champions of the Pit had been crafted by the rulers of Hell when the Horsemen first arose, and while they were not so potent as the Riders of the Apocalypse, neither were they to be underestimated. War allowed himself a moment to wish that Ruin stood with him, rather than pacing the ledges back at the base camp; if they’d only been less concerned with stealth, had known what they’d be facing …

  Well, so be it. This could not have been foreseen, and War needed no ally, even his most trusted and valued, to deal with the likes of these.

  They burst into view, rust-armored shapes on their rotting mounts, massive blades poised to strike, the earth around them crackling with cerulean fire. Three of them, indistinguishable from one another save for the precise shape and location of the horses’ wounds, scrutinized the Horseman through visors thick with shadow. The beasts all but pranced in place, snorting and howling, angry and eager. They fanned out, as War had known they must, and came at him from multiple angles at once.

  He would not be escaping this confrontation unscathed, of that he had no doubt. He crouched, placing the fingertips of his left hand on the corrupted ground. As before, he dr
ew upon the might stored within Chaoseater, absorbed from the surrounding carnage.

  Rather than blades bursting from below, however, this time it was the Horseman himself who changed. A dull cast spread swiftly over him, beginning with his outstretched hand as though drawn from the earth itself, traveling up and out, until he appeared to have been coated in soot—or, perhaps, a dusting of rock.

  The initial pass was scarcely more than a test, and they conducted it well. Their approach, the careful intervals between one strike and the next, meant that their target must always have his back to at least one of them, could never be certain that all three blades would converge at once, or in what order. Even in this first, almost gentle exchange, War found himself hard-pressed to avoid them all. He parried one blade with Chaoseater, ducked beneath a second that might otherwise have claimed his head, but he could do nothing for the third save to take the force against the back of his armor. The blow staggered him, dropping him—if only briefly—to one knee; but thanks to the unnatural rigidity of his temporarily rocky skin, it drew no blood. His arm and his face burned at the touch of Hellfire lingering in the hoofprints, but not nearly so severely as they otherwise might.

  He was standing once more as the riders circled, and still he waited.

  Again they turned and charged, faster this time, standing in their stirrups to add just that much more strength to the coming strikes. Still he waited, one hand on the great black blade that stood, tip-down, beside him, as they pounded closer, closer …

  War thrust against Chaoseater with impossible strength, burying a good portion of the blade in the dirt, but also propelling himself forward at the same time. Feetfirst, he slid swiftly between the front hooves of the nearest beast. Again his arms and his chest burned at the touch of the unholy fire, but he wouldn’t have to endure it long.