The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War)

by Brian J Moses

  “I’m aware of that,” Malith snapped. “The Barrier is still a formidable power, even weakened as it is under Mephistopheles’s will. With only two of the Ash’Ailant felled, their progress has been slow, but it should be mere hours before they create a breach. Fortunately, once they’re through, the city itself should aid in their mission.”

  Malith smiled mirthlessly, the expression terrible with his chiseled features and ice-cold gaze. Then something intruded on his thoughts. A question, a reminder, from Mephistopheles delivered earlier that evening from a damned soul nearly incoherent from being brought personally before the King of Hell. Sending a messenger, rather than contacting Malith directly, was the demon’s way of reminding Malith of the price of failure. The gibbering, terrified creature was Mephistopheles’s idea of subtlety.

  “One thing more,” Malith said. “Has there been any word on the Council of another powerful crossing between the time of Birch’s return and the onset of the invasion? Mephistopheles still seeks the demon Kaelus.”

  “There has been nothing reported at any time, O powerful general,” the dybbuk said. “No word on the traitor demon.”

  “Stay alert,” Malith said. “If he hasn’t yet crossed the Merging, Kaelus may still try now that the Barrier has been so weakened. The demons here should sense his presence, but if he’s managed to hide himself from the King of Hell this long, he may elude us. Mephistopheles is still angered by his sudden disappearance so soon after the paladin’s escape. His patience is now as short for no news as it is for bad news.”

  The dybbuk hissed, then fell silent.

  “You may go.”

  Malith considered his options. The mutated souls had succeeded in overrunning the Barrier once and destroying two of the seven Ash’Ailant, but the defenders had been disorganized and slow to respond. Now they were expecting the attacks, their siege engines were operational, and they were beginning to deploy forces outside the wall in addition to the devastating Shadow Company. Perhaps had Malith ordered the original assault to continue unabated, they could have kept the defenders of Nocka from ever establishing a firm resistance, but instead he’d heeded the dybbuk’s request to place Shadow Company outside the walls in an effort to break and destroy them. For that oversight alone, Malith should have destroyed the creature, but it remained a valuable tool, ensconced as it was within the Prismatic Council.

  Shadow Company. Malith needed a way to break those forces and make them nothing more than wasted flesh.

  With no wooden resources to draw from in Hell ─ wood meant trees, which did not exist in the immortal plane ─ Malith had no catapults or other distance siege engines, and he had never ordered such engines built from metal simply because he hadn’t expected to need them. Had Ran succeeded in his mission, they wouldn’t have been necessary.

  “The best laid plans of drann and dwarves,” he muttered, lamenting his over confidence.

  Where Malith had no wood, he had metal in abundance. For whatever reason, Hell had mines of every conceivable mineral that were as yet unexhausted. Many who worked the mines – meaning the damned – were of the opinion that since Hell itself was infinite, so were the mines. Malith wasn’t sure, but as long as they supplied him with metal to forge weapons, he didn’t particularly care. Most demons disdained the use of weapons and preferred their own teeth and claws in battle, but that suited Malith just fine. He had other ways to use the metal to destroy his enemies.

  “To break the rest of them,” he mused, “I need to use the demons. More than that, I have to frighten them. I have to break up their ranks and drive them back behind that wall for good – show them how quickly they can be defeated.”

  He turned to a messenger.

  “Bring me Arthryx the Bender,” Malith ordered. The mutated creature sped off on powerful legs designed for both speed and endurance. Hell’s general stared thoughtfully toward the distant city, forming his plans until the summoned demon appeared.

  Arthryx was a nightmare to behold, not only because of his grotesque flesh and warped frame, but because Malith knew the demon had deliberately twisted his own body as part of his experiments. Arthryx had six arms, two on each side and two sprouting from his back just above the waist, where they were quite serviceable for reaching things behind him, but worthless in front. To use those rear hands, Arthryx had implanted a third eye in the back of his hairless head. A thick mat of hair ran in a strip down the center of his chest to his groin in a parody of modesty, as the demon had no genitalia nor would he have bothered with such a trivial, mortal concern. In addition, an extra hand protruded from the middle of his stomach, but as far as anyone could tell, the hand was completely useless. For sheer purposes of making himself more horrid, Arthryx had added a second mouth directly underneath the first so that his original jaw was the upper lip of the lower mouth. His uppermost teeth were practically hidden behind a wicked underbite, while the lowest jaw was tucked behind a vicious overbite. When he talked, it was with a double voice like an echo. His flesh was almost human in color, but there was too much red tone in it, and it was thick and scab-like. Despite all the horrors Malith had seen in Hell, including the many faces of the domain’s ruler, Mephistopheles, still he withheld a shudder at the sight of the Bender.

  “You summoned me, General Malith?” Arthryx said, his voices overlapping.

  “Awaken your abominations,” Malith ordered, letting none of his horror show in his body or voice. “I want them ready to assault in two days’ time.”

  “How many?”

  “Four should be sufficient,” Malith answered.

  “Understood,” Arthyrx replied. He swiveled his arms about until the two hands on his left side were clasped together so that one elbow was pointing up and the other down, and he did likewise on the right side. It was a habit of the demon’s Malith found particularly disconcerting.

  “Will there be anything else?” Arthryx asked.

  “Yes,” Malith said in sudden inspiration. “How are your bending skills this side of the Merging?”

  Arthryx shrugged, pushing both sets of elbows in opposite directions. “I have noticed no lessening in my powers,” the demon said, “but I have not yet attempted to bend since we crossed.”

  “Let’s test them,” Malith said. “Order whatever materials you’ll need.” Quickly, he explained what he wanted.

  “I’ll need Hellfire[26] brought through then,” Arthryx said.

  “Do so,” Malith said curtly. “Begin setting up whatever you need. I’ll find you soon.”

  “Yes, General Malith.” Arthryx bowed low, exposing his bizarre back and extra eye to Malith’s sight.

  Malith turned away and allowed himself the luxury of a shiver of pleasure. If Arthryx could bend as Malith desired, the outside forces would no longer be able to stand and hold against him, and with the abominations on their way, the Barrier would fall soon enough.

  And then the real war would begin.

  - 2 -

  Early the next day, Danner discovered the secret Faldergash had refused to divulge. A small army of gnomes suddenly appeared in Nocka, not as a fleet of vehicles on the ground, although there were plenty of those, but as an armada soaring down from the skies. Apparently Faldergash’s reports to the home of the Dale gnomes in exile had warranted sufficient alarm and action on their part to send such a spectacular force.

  At the first sight of gnomish machines actually flying in the air without crashing or exploding, people gawked in awe, and soldiers stood at their posts with their heads tilted back in wide-eyed amazement. Four men actually fell off the edge of the battlements because they weren’t paying attention to where they were going, and one of those died before a Green paladin could reach him to provide healing.

  “Well, Danno,” Faldergash said, his eyes twinkling as Danner looked up in amazement, “you surprised?”

  “Fal, I don’t have the words,” Danner replied in a hushed voice.

  “Good, because there’ll be enough people doing more than the
ir share of talking about this in the days to come,” Faldergash said. He shook his head sadly. “War or no, not everyone will be glad to see us returning, especially after they thought us completely wiped out.”

  The feelings of the populace were mixed, as the gnomes had known they would be. Many who had felt pity for the supposedly deceased race of Dale gnomes now felt joy that they were not all wiped out. Others – namely the dwarves who had not entirely lost the racial animosity toward their technological competitors – viewed their coming as a threat and grumbled about not needing the help of a people who should have had the decency to remain dead. By far, the prevailing opinion was one of stunned acceptance, as people simply took the arrival of the flying armada in stride, having already seen many astonishing sights in recent weeks. When waves of demonic creatures had swept over the walls and faced the mortal defenders with terrifying features, the sight of flying machines became somewhat less amazing than it otherwise might have been. After the initial wonder wore off, people began to act like the Dale gnomes had never disappeared at all and had always been a part of the city’s defense.

  All told, only four hundred gnomes arrived aboard various flying and land-bound vehicles. The airships they rode were as varied as the imagination could conceive. Some had enormous balloons filled with heated gas and were moved by propellers that pushed the contraption through the air. Thirty or so had large, fixed wings spread out in two layers from a central chasse, which housed a pilot and another gnome in back with a supply of explosives to be dropped on the enemy below. On the front of these machines was another propeller, which spun with incredible speed and a deafening buzzing noise and seemed to pull instead of push the machine. Gnomes flew past on smaller gliders, some of which had motors and propellers, but most were unpowered.

  On the ground, the gnomes brought vehicles that seemed to be nothing but metal plating on all sides with small slits through which arrows could be fired and small explosives shot with compressed air through small tubes. They were horribly slow, due to their immense weight, but still moved faster than a man could walk ─ barely. Then there were buggies of various designs, but nothing too deviant from what people had come to expect.

  But perhaps the most mysterious of the gnomes’ creations they’d brought were the anti-infantry devices. These included large containers that could be strapped on a person’s back and from which emerged long hoses with nozzles on the end. Faldergash told Danner these could actually throw a tongue of flame more than two yards in front of the wielder. Long metal tubes called cannons belched flame and projectiles that gouged the earth with explosive force, shredding nearby enemies. There were also vats of chemicals hauled in on large buggies, and Faldergash looked on these with sad eyes.

  “Weapons of destruction, my boy,” Faldergash said when Danner asked. His thick fingers pointed toward a covered vat with particularly vicious contents. “War by means of chemistry, you could say. There’s compounds there that will eat the skin off anything and one that turns into a vapor that burns you apart from the inside. Things too destructive to ever be used against another living soul. I don’t know if we’ll get much of a chance to use them, but they’re here just the same.”

  “Good thing you didn’t have them during the dwarven genocide,” Danner remarked. “You might have been tempted to use them.”

  “We did have them, lad,” Faldergash said, his voice suddenly very weary, “and we decided to escape into exile rather than turn such monstrosities against even the dwarves. But in defense of the world, against demons and Hell-spawned creatures such as you described? I still don’t like it, but it’s a necessity of war. Your defenders here have already used some lesser variants that were developed locally by another Dale gnome in hiding. These will be much, much deadlier.”

  “Maybe they’ll be saved as a last resort now,” Danner lied, trying to sound hopeful.

  “Danner, this whole war is a last resort,” Faldergash said. “Have you actually looked at the sea of creatures out there, or just stared at those in front of you? There’s no way we can win this war, not here anyway. Not like this. It will take an act from God Himself to save us.”

  “Have faith, Fal,” Danner said. “If that’s what it takes, I’m sure God will provide. He’s quite a nice guy in that respect, I’m told.”

  Danner turned to watch another armored buggy trundle by. Faldergash stared at him with sad eyes and stayed silent.

  Chapter 30

  A man should fight with precision and grace – it is a form of art. Still, never underestimate the artistic expression of a sledgehammer.

  - Malith jo’Tarqin,

  private journals (998 AM)

  - 1 -

  Umbramanth faded into Blotmanth, the final month of the year – the traditional month of sacrifice which then rolled over into a new year with Lentzmanth, the month of renewal. The gray skies were blessedly free of snow, but the bitter cold still made life miserable for the mortals on the Barrier. They huddled next to fire pits for warmth, keeping wary eyes on the plains beyond for signs of activity.

  On the first day of the new month, the demonic army resumed its assault against Nocka. Shadow Company was back in place outside the Barrier, now augmented not just by the battalions of human defenders and the elven company that had volunteered earlier, but also by the gnomish ground vehicles, and an additional two battalions of Nocka’s defenders that had been inspired by Shadow Company’s bravery and fortitude, and even a company of dwarven engineers that had recently arrived.

  After speaking briefly to James and Birch, the dwarven captain had promptly introduced himself to Gerard. “Our young queen sends her compliments and insists you put our skills to work. We’ve a debt to repay your Prismatic Order and will stand in the hottest fires to see it paid.”

  Shadow Company was deployed in their standard wedge formation, somewhat reduced by the beating they’d taken earlier, but still holding strong before the central gate. El’Siran stationed his company of elven warriors on the denarae’s right flank, and the dwarven engineers were on the left. The human defenders were split, two battalions on either side, and the gnomish machines were spread out across the whole front of the Barrier. Overhead, gnomish flying machines hovered or circled in preparation for the combat, and paladins mounted on dakkans were already taking their places in the skies. Birch and the other members of his former jintaal hovered in formation around Gerard, providing protection for the de-facto general of their ground forces. The jintaal had officially been dissolved once its mission to destroy The Three had been completed, but James, Birch, Nuse, and Garnet still stayed close whenever possible. Perklet was somewhere on the ground where his formidable healing skills could be of use.

  Nuse’s investigations at the chapterhouse had gotten him nowhere, so he had reluctantly let the matter drop and joined the others at the Barrier.

  Once again, the demonic horde attacked with the breaking of the dawn. Gerard was surprised they hadn’t begun the assault when night still gripped the city, to take advantage of the darkness and deny the mortal affinity for light. It forced him to wonder what the enemy general was planning, that he hadn’t used such a tactic.

  Gerard looked toward the oncoming wave of twisted bodies and claws and noticed several points of light glowing in front of them. First a dozen, then two, until there were at least a hundred of the fiery lights. More and more appeared, as though the rising sun was setting the oncoming army ablaze merely by touching them with its light. Finally, Gerard was able to make out that the lights were in fact humanoid.

  During a training accident when Gerard was a newly raised paladin, one of his Red brothers was caught in an incendiary blast, and the flames engulfed him. The Red’s clothing caught fire and wrapped him in a blanket of flames so thick no one could touch him. By the time they put the fire out, the paladin was too badly burned, and he died despite the best efforts of the attending Green.

  The sight of the flame-wreathed creatures running at him caused Gerard to relive
his horror from that day.

  “What in San’s name are those things?” Garet yelled from his nearby dakkan.

  “Fodder for the slaughter,” Gerard called back with a fierce grin of false confidence. He glanced at Birch, who gave Gerard a knowing look, and he wondered if the Gray paladin was remembering the same misbegotten day. Of course, Birch probably had other memories of flame to occupy his mind as well.

  “Faerer Company,” Gerard called to one of the human units below him, “send an advance platoon to see what those things are.”

  “Yes, sir!” the commander called back.

  A group of fifty men broke away from the main lines and double-timed toward the nearest humanoid flames. Gerard watched from the air as the two groups clashed, and he stared in mounting horror as, one by one, all of the human warriors were engulfed by the flames and fell writhing to the ground. The merest touch from the flaming creatures was enough to set cloth, leather, even living flesh on fire.

  “God have mercy on us all,” someone muttered in the stillness of their shock.

  “Archers!” Gerard bellowed. “Bring them down now! Don’t let them touch you!”

  Arrows streamed from the defenders on the ground and from atop the Barrier, and ballistae fired their massive bolts in the hopes of impaling and destroying some of the creatures. Gerard noticed that the mutated damned souls who followed behind the incendiary forerunners stayed well-clear of any that were brought down by arrows, and those who were unable to avoid contact erupted into flame just as the human warriors had a moment before. They burned less intensely, but they, too, could spread the insatiable flames through contact.

  The archers brought down half of the fiery creatures before they reached the mortal defenders, but those who broke through wreaked havoc in Gerard’s troops. Even creatures that were successfully killed were still a threat, because their flames stayed burning and never flagged in their intensity, and the damned souls who came in contact with them continued to spread the flames like a plague. Each newly ignited creature burned less intensely than the one before, but soon enough, most of the advancing line of mutated creatures was engulfed in flame and screamed in unceasing agony even as they rushed the mortal soldiers.