by Vox Day
Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Ar-Sidriel was arguing with Uzaziel, a stolid, unimaginative angel, over one of Jeqon’s less-convincing embellishments. At first, he was not sure how he could effect his escape, until one of his old Dungeons and Dragons adventures came to mind.
What was that character’s name? Loki, he remembered, Loki the light-fingered. The thief had found himself trapped in a seedy establishment with two of the King’s guardsmen. Guardsmen who didn’t know that the slight figure in the pale blue cloak was the very one they sought for the theft of the Queen’s necklace. Their ignorance had cost them dear.
The thief walked past them, idly juggling a brace of balls that appeared in his left hand as if by magic. A third ball was added, and a fourth, and soon he was passing five balls back and forth between his two hands.
“A jongleur!” the guardsmen cried out with delight, and after buying him a drink, they were soon challenging him to juggle more difficult objects. An apple, and then three. A plate, and then four. It wasn’t long before one of the guards dared him to juggle something more dangerous, something with a blade.
Christopher stared triumphantly into the surprised eyes of the Archangel, who was undoubtedly shocked to find himself choking on his own sword. The grey eyes faded, there was a loud hissing sound, and the solid forms of Ar-Sidriel and Uzaziel grew transparent and dispersed in a smoky cloud of green-and-yellow mist.
“That was easy, now, wasn’t it?” he grinned coldly at Jeqon.
The angel nodded, but maintained a cautious distance from Christopher, who was still holding a sword in either hand.
“I was not… expecting that,” Jeqon confessed, eyeing him warily.
“No, I don’t think they were either. That was kind of the idea, you know.”
Jeqon nodded slowly. “Okay, but how will you deal with the others outside? I don’t think that trick will work as well on four as it does on two. And I can’t juggle.”
Christopher laughed as he belted the archangel’s sword to his side.
“You won’t have to,” he said amiably. “But take this,” he added, holding out Uzbaziel’s sword. “You might need it later.”
Christopher was tempted to leap out of the open window and fly down to the gate, but Jeqon convinced him that that would be a bad idea, so instead they walked down the winding stairs of the watchtower together. The angels of the first watch were surprised to see them so early, but far from being suspicious, they were glad for the extra company. Like their captain, they were eager to hear of the action earlier in the day. Jeqon, of course, was eager to tell his tale again, and Christopher barely needed to egg him on.
As Jeqon began his story for the fourth time, Christopher slipped away and strolled unnoticed to the sealed doors of the Gate. Like the First Gate, the gleaming doors of the Twelfth were immense, so high that their uppermost limits disappeared unseen into the night sky. He placed a hand beside the gold edges that marked the place where the two doors met, and whistled softly to himself as he ran his fingers over their cool, smooth surfaces. The pearly doors were seamless, not, as he had thought before, constructed of stone or timber and covered with enamel. As far as he could tell, they were carved from a single unthinkably gargantuan pearl.
I’d like to see the oyster that made that, he thought, looking back over his shoulder to make sure that no one was looking at him. His wings stroked the air silently, and he flew slowly upward, keeping one hand placed upon the hard metal of the door edges, searching for the mark that sealed them shut.
It wasn’t long before he found what felt like a simple lock, although it was quite large. He could feel the rough edges of the keyhole, which was about the size of his hand and seemingly much too big for the little key tucked away inside his robes. He was surprised when he drew the key out and found that it had magically grown somehow. He inserted it into the lock, and breathed a sigh of relief when it slipped snugly inside the hole, as if it had been designed for it.
He twisted it, and the Twelfth Gate of Heaven exploded outwards, shattering the darkness with a violent eruption of fire, molten gold, and gleaming shards of pearl. There was a deafening cry from outside, as the waiting legions of fallen angels hailed the long-awaited breach. Trumpets blew, and hordes of winged warriors bearing flaming swords burst suddenly into view as the Prince’s captains urged their eager armies forward.
A hand fell upon Christopher’s shoulder. He whirled around and saw Jeqon. To his surprise, the traitorous angel suddenly fell back, cringing before his eyes.
“Forgive me, Great One. I did not know you. I did not know you were aught but an angel!” He hurled himself at Christopher’s feet, pleading. “Do not hold my disrespectful words against me!”
Christopher blinked, surprised. Great One? Him? He looked down past the groveling angel and saw the Prince’s forces sweeping effortlessly past the guards, howling and shrieking as they began their attack. The tiny figures below reminded him of Warhammer miniatures, only this battle was real.
“Don’t worry about it, Jeqon. You had a role to play, and so did I. We’ve done our part.” He drew his sword, and set it blazing with an effortless flick of his mind. How did he know to do that? He laughed. Did it matter? Not really. “Now, let’s have some fun!”
Christopher’s smile grew cruel as he spread his wings and hurled himself downward towards the fighting. The power inside him danced and burned, exulting in the feverish glory of battle. He did not know that his snow-white wings had dimmed to an ashy grey color. Nor did he know that when Jeqon had fallen back before his gaze, it was because his green eyes had turned as red as blood.
Chapter 7
Evil Council
Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:
—Isaiah 7:5
“You fought well,” Kaym told Christopher as he side-stepped a scorched crater in the gold-bricked street. “I saw many falling before your sword.”
Christopher nodded, gratified by the praise. Kaym had taken advantage of a brief respite in the battle to survey the front lines and see what kind of force they were facing. Now he sought to find Baal Chanan, the mighty angel-lord to whom he owed allegiance. Exactly where in Heaven they were, Christopher didn’t know, although he could tell from the walls still towering over their heads that they weren’t very far from the blasted gate.
The fighting had been fierce, like nothing he’d had ever seen before, wilder and more out-of-control than any war movie. The Prince’s legions had poured into the Eternal City through the shattered Twelfth Gate like a murderous pack of wolves, but their assault had been blunted by a surprisingly stiff resistance less than a mile inside the breach. Two Great Ones, cherubim according to what Christopher had heard, had sacrificed themselves in a desperate effort to blunt the force of the attack.
He knew he would never forget the sight of the two mighty angels sweeping down from the midnight sky, blazing with all the furious glory of a thousand angry suns. The shock of their onslaught was unbelievable, of such force that more than twelve hundred angels had perished in an instant. From his safe vantage point near the broken gate, Christopher had thought for a moment that the whole attack might fail, as stunned angels reeled and even archangels began to retreat for the safety of the black void beyond the walls.
But Baal Chanan, the great Lord of Havoc, had stopped the panic with a deafening shout that drowned out the frightened cries of fleeing angels, and revived the Fallen attack by leaping down into the midst of the fray. Surrounded by the shining angels of his bodyguard, Baal Chanan destroyed one cherub himself even as his guard brought down the other like a pack of wolves killing a moose.
The sacrifice of the cherubim had not been in vain, though, for the delay had prevented the Prince’s army from taking the next series of stately buildings before the Divine reinforcements arrived. A b
itter clash ensued before Baal Chanan’s trumpeters blew the order to fall back to a defensible position just inside the broken gate. It was a small foothold, but their most important goal had been achieved; the Fallen were at last again inside the Gates of Heaven.
“Thanks,” Christopher warmed to Kaym’s praise. “I’ve played a ton of wargames, but I’d never been in a real battle. I’m just glad I didn’t blow it.”
“Unfortunately, not all of our Host were equally stalwart. Two cohorts of cowards ran away after the cherubim attacked.”
Christopher shrugged. Kaym’s voice was full of disgust, but he, personally, found it hard to blame them. Only his unexpected battle-lust had prevented him from freaking out and running away himself.
“I don’t know about that. When those big suckers hit, it was like a nuke going off. If I’d been any closer, I think I would have run too!”
“Nevertheless, they will be held accountable,” the fallen angel assured him ominously. Kaym’s mood had darkened, and Christopher did not know why. He hadn’t seen all that many Divine angels during their quick surveillance, although he could have missed seeing tons of them in the dim glow of Heaven’s night, he admitted to himself.
It wasn’t just Kaym’s attitude that had changed, though, his appearance was altered too. He stood taller, and was far more massive. The biker jacket was gone, replaced by plated black armor that encased bulging shoulders the size of boulders. His chiseled face seemed broader now, and more brutal. His eyes, dark and cynical before, were simply hard now, with a hint of cruelty lurking behind them. The dragon tattoos remained, but they wound their sinuous way down hairless arms now corded with veins and thick with muscle. Only his arrogance and the sense of power that radiated from him was unchanged.
“Didn’t they frighten you at all, the cherubim, I mean?”
“No.” There was no bravado in the angel’s voice. “They are to be respected, but not to be feared. Even the mightiest of the Divine will do nothing more than destroy. They are forbidden to take power from one another, or even from one of us. The King of Heaven brooks no rivals, and keeps his angels firmly in check.”
“Oh, well that’s good.” Christopher frowned, realizing that he’d missed something as a pair of fallen archangels hurried past them, heading the other way. “What do you mean by taking power?”
Kaym shook his head, then snapped his fingers and caused a scary-looking helmet with a single horn arcing up from the back to appear in his hand. “I don’t have the time to explain it to you now.” He slammed the helm down over his face. “Just understand that you must stay close to me until I tell you otherwise. The Prince has plans for you, and you cannot be left alone.”
Christopher nodded without comprehension as Kaym’s trick with the helmet distracted him from pondering the implications of the fallen angel’s words. I wonder how he does that, he thought, admiring Kaym’s armor as they passed another pile of shattered stone that had once been a building. An outfit like that would make a pretty good Halloween costume for the party at Ground Zero next year.
They finally found the Lord of Havoc in a large temple that was only half-destroyed, standing amidst white marble scarred with balefire and other signs of angelic battle. He was a giant, red-skinned angel-lord with a brutal, animalistic look to him. Tusks protruded from his lower lip, and his furrowed black brows were thick and hairy. Baal Chanan was angry, punctuating his words with sharp gestures at one of the four commanders surrounding him. It was clear that the situation was dire, and the Fallen foothold was a tenuous one.
“They’ll hit us with everything they have as soon as the light comes,” the Lord of Havoc said. “Michael isn’t as stupid as everyone likes to think. They were expecting us, there’s no other explanation for it. Forget the encirclement, we should have been twice as far in by now. No, Im Barku, they were lying in wait for us, I am sure of it!”
“If they were going to attack, they would have done it by now,” argued a second commander, who wore an Aspect of a crimson-maned lion. Shrouding his rippling, furry shoulders were black, leathery wings. “Maybe they want to parley.”
“That’s nonsense. They’ve got us surrounded on four sides, they don’t have to hurry. Michael always likes to fight with the light, Verchiel, and that’s what he’s waiting for.”
“I think it’s a mistake to assume that we’re facing Michael,” the lion-angel disagreed. He had an annoying voice. “We don’t know that.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Baal Chanan growled. “Who do you think devised this trap? Raphael? Michael isn’t the brightest star in the firmament, but he knows how to fight. Unlike some commanders I could mention. How could you not see a whole cursed host coming up behind you, Verchiel? The rear guard was your responsibility!”
Lord Verchiel frowned. “That’s not fair!” he protested defensively. “When the cherubim attacked, I saw you needed help. We were nearly overrun by our angels fleeing from the battle, so I brought my cohorts forward. If I hadn’t, the front line might have broken.”
“Or it might not have,” Im Barku muttered to himself.
“No one’s questioning your valor, Verchiel,” another commander, Belphegor, said viciously. “Just your sense!”
Baal Chanan groaned. It was a sound rich with frustration and long-suffering. Christopher almost felt sorry for him.
“What’s done is done,” the Fallen general pointed out. “Perhaps you were right, Verchiel. It doesn’t matter. There will be time for recriminations later. What we have to determine now is what they’re going to throw at us, and how we’re going to handle it.”
“Right,” said Belphegor. “Great Lord, last night we lost about two thousand, including seventeen dominations and eight thrones. Another eight hundred cowards ran away, may the Prince quench their flames with a hand of everlasting ice! That leaves us with just over ten thousand, with only three seraphim to take on Michael and however many of the Sarim elect to show up.”
Baal Chanan glanced around the room and appeared to notice the latecomers for the first time.
“Ah, Kaym. What is your count?”
“I cannot say with surety, Great Lord, but it looked as if there were two full hosts assembled before our lines.”
Christopher didn’t know how big a host was, but from the reactions on the commanders’ faces, it had to be a lot. Either Kaym was lying, or his eyes just weren’t as good as Kaym’s, and he couldn’t imagine why Kaym would lie about this.
“Two hosts!” Verchiel’s leonine face blanched to a sickly shade of yellow. “Great Lord, we must retreat! There is only a single host at our back.”
“Coward,” Christopher heard Belphegor mutter under his breath.
“Retreat? Never. How many times have we tried storming Heaven’s gates and failed?” Baal Chanan thumped his armored chest and roared his disapproval. “We’re finally inside, and we will not fail. I will not permit it!”
He turned again to Belphegor.
“So, we are outnumbered, three to one. How many Great Ones are present?”
“Impossible to tell with any certainty, Great Lord.”
“Then guess.”
Belphegor shrugged.
“More than ten, less than twenty. There are so many auras out there, it’s hard to pick out the stronger ones.”
Christopher shook his head, shaken by what he’d heard. He had seen for himself the mighty power of the cherubim, and felt the incredible strength in their majestic wings. If two cherubim alone had been enough to wipe out a thousand angels, what could ten do? Or twenty? Why, twenty would be more than enough to blast what was left of the Fallen army out of time.
He went over their options in his mind. Retreat was a questionable idea at best. Even if they could force their way through the Divine host that waited outside the gate behind them, the two hosts at their back were likely to pursue them, and history clearly showed that a retreat turned into a rout quite easily.
Unlike these immortals, Christopher knew that he could die, a
nd if he did, that that might well be it for him. Unless, of course, that death would only lead to… whatever death lead to. He abandoned the thought. He had no idea what the rules were, and Kaym wouldn’t tell him anything. He was already in Heaven, and it was a battlefield. It made you wonder what Hell was like.
He rubbed his eyes, trying to jump-start his brain, thinking back on the hundreds of battles he’d fought over the same eight-foot piece of green felt. Okay, they’d mostly played with tournament rules, with both sides spending three thousand points per army. But he remembered once when he’d first started playing Warhammer, when Don had teamed him up with another novice and given the two of them six thousand points to his own three thousand.
Despite their two-to-one advantage, Don had beaten them soundly in a defeat as embarrassing as it was complete. Christopher and the other guy, what was his name, Dan, or something like that, had only managed to inflict few casualties while in return, both of their armies had been wiped out or put to flight. How had Don done it? He tried to picture the setup. Now he had it! Don had focused most of his forces on a single unit on the front, hitting it from three sides and forcing it to run. The fleeing unit had caused the whole allied front to collapse, allowing Don to pick off the allied units one at a time, so that in each little battle within the battle, he had the advantage.
A battle within a battle. The overall numbers didn’t come into play if you had the numbers at the point of the attack! He had the answer to Baal Chanan’s dilemma! The only problem was, how could the Fallen attack on three sides when they were themselves surrounded?