The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War)

by Brian J Moses

  Garnet sprinted the last few yards to Gerard’s body to find the Black paladin already gone. He’d vanished between one heartbeat and the next, while Garnet was distracted by the demon. Garnet knelt at Gerard’s side and felt for a pulse, but the Red paladin was already dead. His face was remarkably peaceful, as though the last thing he’d seen had not been the face of a mortal enemy, but rather something he knew, loved, and trusted. The scars on his face did not detract from the beatific peace, they only served to highlight the life of pain the Red paladin had just left behind.

  Then the moment of lucidity passed, and the war around him crashed into Garnet’s awareness as a howling demon knocked him to the ground and tried to maul Gerard’s corpse. A furious rage flash-boiled in Garnet, and he shouted, “Get away from him!” and split the demon in half with one blow.

  More demons came, and Garnet stood over Gerard’s body like a guardian angel, protecting his slain commander from being desecrated. A moment later, Danner and Michael were at his side, then Trebor, Flasch, and Marc joined them. Then Brican and Caret, and a dozen more denarae. Within a few minutes, all of those remaining in Shadow Company had formed a wide protective ring around Gerard’s body, and they fended off all who came at them. Only the paladin’s weapons seemed to work against the true demons; when one attacked, denarae kythed for help, and the nearest paladin rushed over to cut the unholy beast down.

  “Trebor, contact some of the paladins overhead,” Garnet thought, his mental voice a roar of cold fury. “We’re surrounded and need an evac right away.”

  Around Shadow Company, where the mortal defenders didn’t have the benefit of paladins already in their midst, men were dying at a terrible rate. Demons now swept down from the skies or rushed forward on the ground, and the mortal forces were soon drowning in an oppressive tidal wave of the immortal monsters that crushed in on them from all directions. Paladins rushed to aid them, but they couldn’t get there quickly enough to save most of the men. Gnomes piled people aboard their buggies and sped back toward the gates, which opened long enough for the machines to speed through and then boomed back shut again.

  Whole companies tried to break away from foes they couldn’t seem to harm. They turned tail and fled back to the walls, shouting out in desperation for the gates to be opened. If the demons were not too close behind them, the guards inside quickly obliged and allowed them entrance. At one of the gates, however, the demons and damned souls were right on the heels of a lone platoon of defenders, and the guards on the Barrier refused to open the gates. Men were slaughtered right before their eyes, and the guards listened to screams that would haunt their nightmares for the rest of their lives.

  One of the other gates wasn’t shut in time, and a monstrous demon gripped the edges and held them open until the tide of creatures behind it could force the gates wide. Paladins rushed over from every available spot on the Barrier to meet the breach, for they knew only their weapons could prevail against the unholy brutes. Humans, elves, gnomes, and dwarves held the demons at bay as best they could, but the press was too strong. The Stone in the courtyard toppled to the ground as a demon, the same one who had held open the gates, tackled the pillar of gleaming rock and brought it crashing down. The demons let out a horrible cheer that changed to screams of pain as the paladins arrived and drove them all back through the gates, which boomed shut as the defenders inside slaughtered the remaining damned souls trapped within.

  Out on the battlefield, Shadow Company was beset on all sides by the demonic horde, and they were cut off from any escape to the Barrier. They were holding their own against the press of demons and damned souls, their fury over Gerard’s death fueling their bodies and driving them to the limits of mortal prowess as they threw back wave after wave of monstrosities that threatened to consume them at any moment.

  “Where’s that evac?” Garnet asked, cutting down two smaller demons in one swing.

  “It’s coming,” Trebor kythed. “I shocked the Hell out of Danner’s uncle at first and had to explain what was going on. They’ll be here in five minutes.”

  “Trebor, I don’t know that we’ll last five more seconds,” Garnet grated in his thoughts, but knew there was nothing he could do. Denarae started to fall with more frequency around him as more demons attacked than he and the other paladins could counter and destroy.

  Just then a dark shadow fell over the company of denarae, and Garnet risked a glance up to see what new threat had arrived. But he saw only the gray scales of a dakkan and a long, thick rope that dropped to the ground.

  “Everyone grab on,” Garnet shouted, reinforcing the command with a mental bellow. Ropes dropped in their midst as a dozen other dakkans followed Birch, whose gray mount was tearing at flying creatures while trying to maintain a hover. Denarae fell back and grabbed the ropes as best they could, and the dakkans slowly began to gain altitude, hoisting more and more of the denarae-laden rope off the ground as they rose. A dozen other paladins circled their fellows, protecting the evacuation from the worst of the flying demons and damned souls.

  Garnet looked around and saw a squad still engaged, holding off a press of damned souls.

  “Flasch, get your ass back here, we’re leaving!” he bellowed hoarsely, then bent and lifted Gerard’s body to his shoulders. The last of the denarae broke away and grabbed the ropes, and Garnet grabbed the last available space on Birch’s dangling rope. Gerard’s added weight and bulk made it difficult, but he wasn’t about to leave their commander’s body behind. Something attached itself to Garnet’s foot, and he saw a pair of damned souls clawing at his ankle. Garnet couldn’t kick at them, lest he lose his precarious grip on the rope, so he endured the clawing with a grimace as they worked their claws through the joints in his armor and nicked the flesh within.

  Then one of the paladins guarding the rescue rose beneath them and cut the twisted creatures away, sending body parts spinning into the howling mass below them. The lowest denarae on another rope was pulled free by a tall demon before he could escape, and his body was torn apart by the monster. Garnet’s stomach churned, but he gritted his teeth and looked toward Nocka. Gerard’s body pressed down with more than just physical weight on Garnet’s shoulders, and tears stung his eyes as they crossed the Barrier to the safety of the city beyond.

  Chapter 31

  When is a hero more powerful – in life or in death?

  - Garnet jo’Garet,

  “The Warrior Mythos” (1030 AM)

  - 1 -

  The fall of Gerard Morningham had placed a deathly pall over the spirits of the denarae and officers of Shadow Company. Something of the Red paladin’s spirit had been in every nuance of their tight-knit unit, and his sudden removal left them all feeling like their heart and soul had been broken. Without the Shepherd, the sheep were left aimless and wandering.

  They retreated to a small, abandoned block of the city on the fringes of the rest of the army of defenders. The streets around the small buildings became like a shell, and they withdrew protectively for the night to recover from their devastating losses, both physical and spiritual. Of the three hundred denarae who had first answered Trebor’s call for help and volunteered to fight in the war, half their number were now slain. Two dozen had been killed during their previous encounters with the Merishank army, and before the disastrous battle, only twenty-five had fallen during the last week of battle at the Barrier. Only fifty men killed, and then twice that had died in one day of fighting with the coming of the demons.

  Still, they’d fared better than any of the other units, for which Garnet knew he should be thankful. The knowledge was a bitter taste of comfort, however.

  Gerard’s body had been returned to the Prism’s headquarters and was even now being prepared for cremation and burial, along with dozens of other paladins whose slain bodies had been recovered. Ceremonies would wait until after the war was over. No one mentioned the grim, ubiquitous thought that none of them might survive to commemorate the dead and would instead join their sil
ent ranks.

  Garnet assumed command of Shadow Company, as per Gerard’s standing orders, but he didn’t have the first clue where to begin with them. He’d studied tactics under Gerard and Robert Day, another Red paladin who’d worked with Gerard during Garnet’s training. Bobby taught Garnet how to think and feel during a battle and showed him how everything he learned about individual combat could be used in a larger scale. Understanding how a single warrior moved with the flow of combat gave insight into how an entire unit might maneuver in battle. He taught him the theories and how they could be applied. Some things he learned from Gerard about group tactics, Garnet identified as being grounded in the theories Bobby advocated, so Garnet had studied both men’s philosophies eagerly.

  But in spite of everything Bobby had shown Garnet about rationale and applications, it was Gerard who had sculpted Garnet’s fighting and tactical thinking during combat. Gerard taught him how to control the battle, how to make his enemy react to him and not the other way around. He taught Garnet the way to attack without form, using standard conventions to inform but not limit his overall assault. Gerard had taught Garnet everything the older Red paladin knew about fighting, and Garnet knew Gerard was always the most proud of him when Garnet had beaten his mentor.

  In a way, Gerard was a second father to Garnet, and it is one of a parent’s greatest wishes to see a child become greater than they. Gerard’s other child was Shadow Company, and that sense of familial bond was the only real comfort in the wake of their Shepherd’s death.

  Garnet walked the dark streets, knowing that even with the fall of night, the war still raged on only a mile or so away. Men were falling. Damned souls were dying a second death. Demons were being obliterated. And all Garnet could do was step slowly down a frozen street lit only by a few flickering fires, burying himself in loss and despair. Finally he sat down on the front steps of an abandoned house and watched a procession of snow ants[27] frantically adjust their path to go around his boot.

  The new leader of Shadow Company spent hours sitting on the frozen stairs, his thoughts a tangle of grief and confusion. He knew he wasn’t ready to take over the company.

  How can I do this? he wondered in despair.

  - 2 -

  Vinder Abram picked his way through the streets. A gnomish contraption of some sort had crashed and destroyed most of a building, and the rubble lay strewn about the stone streets. Something still burned inside what had once been someone’s home, and the Violet paladin gave it a wide berth. He’d been alive for nearly five decades, and no one lived that long without a healthy respect for gnomish technology.

  He passed a half-dozen more buildings before finding the area he sought, or at least the individuals he sought. Still, even though he came looking for them, he was startled when a gray-skinned form loomed out of the darkness and challenged him. Vinder’s sword leapt free of its sheath, but he immediately lowered it to indicate he wasn’t a threat.

  “It’s okay,” called a dispirited voice. “Let him in.”

  Vinder nodded at the denarae who’d challenged him, noting the slump in his shoulders and the half-glazed look in his eyes. He clapped a hand on his shoulder as he passed, but the denarae only scowled at him. At least he wasn’t staring vacantly anymore, Vinder mused.

  A young human stood up to greet Vinder as he walked forward. He wore a violet cloak identical to Vinder’s own, and his face was familiar to the paladin instructor.

  “Flasch jo’Keer,” Vinder said, smiling slightly as he waved the younger man back to his seat on a set of low steps.

  “Instructor,” Flasch replied.

  “Please, we’re both paladins now, lad,” he said as he started to sit. Vinder belatedly realized he still had his sword in his hand, and he quickly sheathed it. Flasch noticed the nicks in the blade and the well-worn grip before the weapon was out of sight. He sat down and made himself comfortable on stone stairs.

  “I didn’t expect you to be here on the front lines, sir,” Flasch said. “You always struck me as well, more academic.”

  “Ah, but in my youth I rivaled the best Red paladins on the practice field,” Vinder said with a slight smile. “It was only an unfortunate penchant for academic study that kept me out of the field. For a time I compromised by journeying to remote villages to instruct the locals in the virtues of the Prism, always secretly hoping to run into a few demons to make things interesting. It’s only these last few years that I decided to leave traveling to younger bodies and took up instruction.”

  Flasch smiled half-heartedly, but the expression faded before it even began. He hesitated, then looked at Vinder and asked, “I don’t mean to be rude, sir, but why are you here?”

  “I go where I’m needed, lad,” Vinder replied cryptically, “and just now I’m not needed anywhere else.”

  Flasch looked at him sharply. “And you’re needed here?”

  “You tell me.”

  The two men sat in silence for a long moment. Around them, the denarae of Shadow Company huddled in loose clusters, as much for shared warmth as for companionship and emotional bonding.

  “Did you know,” Flasch said finally, “that death for the denarae is usually treated as a celebration of the person’s life? The things he’s done, the people he knew, the joys he shared.”

  “An admirable way of viewing the end of one’s life,” Vinder said, nodding. “Are you unable to look at Gerard’s fate this way?”

  “I have a hard time looking at it as anything other than a waste,” Flasch said darkly. “We were thrust into the jaws of death by the people who should be protecting and guiding us all, and yet we survived in spite of the odds. Everything we’ve done, everything he made us, and it wasn’t enough. Gerard was cut down while fighting where he shouldn’t have been in the first place. If the Prismatic Council is supposed to be the closest thing to God’s authority on Lokka, I have to believe either they’re warped or He is.”

  Vinder sighed glumly. It was a variation on one of the hardest questions ever asked to men of faith, and that it came from the lips of a paladin of piety made it all the more poignant. He allowed the grim silence to stretch out for a moment before he responded to the younger man.

  “What is faith, Flasch?” he asked, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Flasch’s head snap up.

  “Didn’t we already have this conversation in class once?” Flasch asked.

  “We did,” Vinder confirmed, “and no one gave me an answer, so I’m asking again. What is faith?”

  “My heart’s a little empty to give you an answer now, sir,” Flasch replied.

  “Try.”

  Vinder watched frustration play over the young man’s face, and he wondered if the other paladin was trying to think of a way to get rid of him now. But beneath the frustration, he sensed curiosity, as well as a burning hunger for just this sort of message. In the end, the hunger won out, as Vinder knew it would. He remembered Flasch from the classes he’d taught during the most recent training session, and he’d been secretly impressed by the young man’s crafty insights.

  “Belief in the divine message,” Flasch said tentatively after a long moment of silent struggle.

  “A good beginning,” Vinder allowed. “It’s both too complex and too simple of an answer, though. Most men in this world believe in God, and if put to the question, they believe His message, or at least what they’ve been told it is. But are they men of faith?”

  “Some are, no doubt,” Flasch said.

  Vinder nodded, accepting the point. “Faith is more than just believing in God, or even believing in His words to us. In fact, faith need not have anything to do with the divine. You have faith in your brother paladins, faith in your denarae soldiers, even faith in the strength of your sword.”

  Flasch frowned in thought.

  “Do you know the man who forged that sword?” Vinder asked. Flasch shook his head. “But you use it day in and day out, putting it between you and an army of slavering beasts who seek your blood, and I dares
ay it has yet to fail you.”

  “It’s a strong blade,” Flasch said. “I trust it.”

  “Ah, excellent,” Vinder said with a satisfied smile. “Now, would you take my sword into battle instead of your own?”

  He awkwardly drew his sword and laid it across his knees. The blade was battle worn and had seen years of service, but it was obviously well maintained and would kill many more demons in its time.

  “It’s clearly served you well, so yes,” Flasch replied, studying the blade more closely.

  “You trust my blade, then?”

  “You do, so I would.”

  “And a new sword, fresh from the forge, untested in battle?” Vinder continued. “Would you rather carry a brand new sword, made by a master craftsman no less, or either of ours?”

  “Obviously one of ours,” Flasch replied, now clearly confused where Vinder was going with this topic.

  “That is your faith, young man,” Vinder replied. “You have carried your sword and seen ample evidence of its strength. You can clearly see my sword and the scars it carries, and the fact that I yet live is a testament to the strength of this sword. Faith is believing the evidence.

  “I believe in the craftsmanship of that new, untested blade, but when my life is on the line, I want this old hunk of metal,” Vinder said, touching the blade familiarly. “You can believe and accept something as true all day long, but faith asks you to leap blindly into the darkness, trusting that belief with your life.”

  Flasch stared at the metal sword, absorbing the older Violet’s message.