The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War)

by Brian J Moses

“That’s what separates us from the men who stand in the pews, arms raised in praise, voices raised in supplication, hearts held in safety,” Vinder said. “Faith asks us to look at God’s message to us, and not only believe the words, but trust them. Trust them so wholly, so completely, we can hold them up to the world and say unabashedly they are what’s right and true. The virtues we live by and the morality they instill within us are the surest test of God’s divine will you’ll ever find in this world. Where actions fail to live up to those ideals, you will not find God. You’ll find men. Good men perhaps, but still men, and we are flawed creatures.”

  The younger paladin stared at him in something akin to awe.

  “Do I have something on my face?” Vinder asked. “I thought I washed.”

  Flasch suddenly barked a laugh, the sound so out-of-place amidst the scattered denarae that he blushed and had the grace to look chagrined.

  “We all doubt from time to time, son,” Vinder said softly. “Most people slide through life safe in their beliefs because they’re never asked to trust them, just accept them. Belief is for the easy times, faith is for the rough ones. Look within yourself and decide whether you really trust not only yourself, not only God, but whether you trust Gerard and his judgment. I knew him as a trainee, I knew him as a paladin, and I knew him as a gifted instructor. He knew what he was doing, and if you really trusted him, honor his memory and celebrate the life he gave willingly to God.”

  Vinder stood, sheathed his sword, and laid a hand on Flasch’s shoulder.

  “For God and for man. For life,” he murmured, then left the young man in silence.

  - 3 -

  A shadow fell across Garnet and he looked up to see his father standing in front of the nearest fire, his armor still covered in blood and gore. The two men were alone. Garnet gave no indication that he saw his father. Garet walked over and sat down next to him. There was barely enough room for the two mountainous men, so Garnet brushed aside some snow and shifted over to allow his father more room. The two Red paladins sat in silence, both staring into nearby flames and lost in their own thoughts. Sin was just visible overhead through a break in the clouds, the Ice Moon’s full light shining down on the nearly empty street. The sky was brightening in preparation for the coming dawn.

  “You know,” Garet said finally, “the first time I left home after marrying your mother was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life.”

  Garnet twitched his head to the side slightly, indicating he was listening.

  “Your mother’s never been what you could call robust, and she was pregnant with your brother and sister. You were only a couple years old then, but already running about waving sticks at the chickens and trying to use your dog as a horse,” Garet said, causing Garnet to smile briefly at the thought. Then the expression faded back into gloom. “I was angry at the Prism for taking me away just then, and I seriously considered refusing to go, but when the time came, I joined with the jintaal they’d assigned me to and went to do my duty.

  “I was gone for nearly three months. We did our job and eradicated a pocket of demons that had been terrorizing a town in the mountains,” Garet said. He stopped a moment and tossed a piece of wood on the nearby fire, kicking up a flurry of sparks. Then he settled back down and looked up at the stars and the full moon overhead. “The mission went bad almost from the start, though, and would have failed without me, of that we were all sure. I know the man they would have replaced me with, and while he’s courageous, he hasn’t the same skill with a blade I do. The demons pinned us in a network of tunnels, and I held off several dozen of them while the Green healed the other three surviving paladins. There were times they pressed me back into the cave and I was quite literally swinging my sword over the bodies of my comrades. Twice I pulled the Green away from a sudden rush that would have killed him while he was concentrating on healing.

  “They accompanied me home on our way back to Nocka, and your mother went into labor within hours of our arrival. With twins, it was a hard labor for her, and she nearly died.” Garet’s eyes were lost in the past, and his face colored with remembered anguish at the thought of losing his wife. “If it hadn’t been for the Green, she surely would have been lost to us. My healing skills are almost nonexistent, and there was no one of skill whom I could have reached and returned with in time. He saved your mother’s life.

  “But what would have happened if I had refused to go?” Garet asked, turning to look at his son, who still wouldn’t face him. “That Green would probably have died, and so would the others, I would have lost your mother, and your siblings would have never seen their first glimpse of sunlight. It took a very special kind of courage to leave my loved ones behind and go on that jintaal, but had I not, I would have lost everything. I look on that as God’s reward to me for doing as He called me to do.

  “That Green was Perky, the quiet, bright, little fellow who went with us this last time,” Garet said quietly, “and even now, he’s risking his neck to crawl to some of the hottest spots of the battle to retrieve the wounded and administer his special touch of healing. Quiet as a mouse, but the heart of a lion. I think he’s what they had in mind when they invented the word ‘saint.’”

  The two men were silent for a long moment.

  “He glowed on the battlefield,” Garnet said finally, his voice barely a whisper. His throat was choked with unshed tears.

  “Who?”

  “Gerard. When he was fighting that Black paladin, this Malith,” Garnet said, remembering the name the denarae had picked up from Gerard’s mind before his death. “Just before he died, Gerard’s body shone with a white light all its own. It hurt me here,” Garnet said, putting his hand on his chest, “just to see him. I think he knew he couldn’t beat Malith, not and come out alive, but he fought anyway, hoping to take the Black paladin with him into death. I think he truly embodied his virtue, and it changed him.”

  “I don’t doubt you, son,” Garet said. “A lot of companies, especially the older units more steeped in tradition, have patron saints they believe watch over them. Most were extraordinary men who lived back before the coming of the Merging, or who died in those wars, and not even all of them were warriors. Maybe Gerard has joined their ranks.”

  “He was no saint, he was the Shepherd,” Garnet said with a sniff. Then he squared his shoulders and wiped his eyes with a rag lying nearby. Something drifted through his mind, a comment he’d heard echoed on the lips of many men of Shadow Company.

  “With the Shepherd dead, what will happen to the flock?” Garnet whispered, voicing the thought. Then he stood and looked down at his father. “When the Shepherd dies, it falls to the sheep to slay the wolves and defend themselves.”

  Garet reached up and clasped his son’s hand, and Garnet hauled him to his feet. Father and son looked at each other a moment, then they embraced.

  “Thanks, dad,” Garnet said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a company to lead.”

  - 4 -

  Garnet walked back in the midst of Shadow Company, his resolve firm. Perhaps Gerard was dead, but Garnet was determined to see that his spirit would live on in the backbone of their unit. Garnet couldn’t imagine Gerard sitting around moping about anything in the world, nor would he have let them do so. Denarae who saw Garnet pass stood and walked after him, a sense of wonder seeping over their faces. They didn’t kythe in his mind, so they didn’t know what Garnet was thinking, but the sheer sense of purpose with which he walked was enough to draw them after him as though enchanted.

  The Red paladin stopped near the center of where the denarae had camped, and he looked around him at all the faces. Most of the denarae sat with thousand-mile stares, still in shock from the battle and the fall of their leader and so many of their comrades. Thirty or so had followed Garnet as he cut a path to the middle, and those few looked at him in expectant confusion.

  “What in God’s good name and grace do you think you’re doing?” Garnet shouted toward a group of de
narae lost in thought. They glanced up in surprise and some anger. Michael and Marc stood and took a worried step toward Garnet, but they stopped at the look on his face. Flasch looked up from where he sat on a low set of steps. He, too, saw the look on Garnet’s face, and he smiled.

  “Is this the legacy we’re going to be left with?” Garnet said angrily. “Gerard Morningham took us in and made us one of the most dangerous fighting forces this world has ever seen, and look at you. You’re sitting around like children who’ve just lost a pet, moping about how awful you feel and how empty the world is without it. The man I knew and followed would have kicked you all in the ass and spit before you in disgust for such a display of self-pity and sorrow.

  “Our Shepherd died protecting his flock,” Garnet stated, his voice firm. He glared at the gray-skinned faces around him, daring any one of them to utter a single word. For a moment, he felt like Gerard was standing by him, one hand on his shoulder to guide and encourage him. “Now the wolves are howling at the door, and the sheep are cowering behind the walls crying out in despair and bleating like cowards. Well screw the wolves!” Garnet shouted suddenly. “I believe Gerard is looking down on us now, and I’ll be damned to Hell if I’m going use his death as an excuse to fail him. He will always be our Shepherd, but it’s time we stopped being sheep. It’s time we shed our wool and became wolves ourselves. Sheep gather in flocks for safety and are led about. Wolves join together in packs and hunt. Sheep get slaughtered. Wolves feast on their prey.

  “And we will be the most dangerous, the most vicious, the most lethal wolves God ever granted the power to kill,” Garnet said. His voice rang off the stones of the buildings around him, and now the denarae were all on their feet, their eyes rapt on the large paladin at the center of their midst. Some wept. Garnet turned as he talked, addressing the remaining company as a whole. Perhaps by coincidence, the first rays of dawn broke through to the street and lit the area around Shadow Company with a ruddy glow.

  “The training he gave us, the purpose he envisioned, and the force of will with which he drove us will always remain a part of Shadow Company,” Garnet said firmly. “His very spirit lives on as the heart and soul of this unit, even now. We have only to prove ourselves worthy of the trust he placed in us. We have a choice now to sit here and wallow in shame and despair, betraying everything he ever gave us, or we can return to the front and make those Hell-spawned bastards sorry they ever thought of crossing our path.”

  Something Gerard had once said echoed in Garnet’s ears, as though he’d only just heard it spoken.

  “If I’m going to fall, I’m going to go down standing up,” Garnet said, then spun on his heel. He strode to where he’d laid his sword, swiftly belted the massive weapon in place, then walked away. Denarae parted for him to pass, staring at him raptly in awe. Within a few steps, Garnet was aware of Flasch and Michael on his left, and Danner, Trebor, and Marc on his right. He heard a massive shuffling, and without glancing back, he knew that, to a man, Shadow Company was formed up behind him in perfect rank and column. He heard a snapping sound, looked to the side, and saw the Shadow Company standard lifted aloft, tattered but waving proudly in the dawn’s early light. The crossed white sword and shepherd’s crook seemed to glow against the black banner, reminding Garnet of Gerard’s final moments.

  “I know you’re up there,” Garnet murmured. “I’ll do my best to see we’re all worthy of you. Of your sacrifice.”

  - 5 -

  Birch looked over the crowd from the top of the back wall of the Barrier and saw Shadow Company walking through the ranks of defenders, a wedge of respect carving the path before them and to each side. They had been the first unit to face the wave of damned souls out on the plains, they had borne the brunt of most of the assault, and they’d been the last unit left on the battlefield after the sudden shift in the battle the previous day. And now, after the loss of their guide and leader, they were returning to the front lines to resume their role at the head of the war to protect the whole world.

  Birch felt a deep and profound sense of respect for them all, especially the Red paladin, Garnet, who now marched at their fore. It must have taken a unique brand of courage and leadership to bring them all back to the place of their loss. Gerard’s death was a blow to Birch as well, who despite their years of separation had still considered the Red paladin one of his closest friends. Birch was immensely proud that his nephew was among the men leading the group that carried Gerard’s spirit and legacy.

  The fighting had continued unabated through the night, but there was now a lull as the demons reorganized and integrated themselves into the lines of battle. There were now clusters of the mantis-like childris, block formations of the monstrous drolkuls, and a few individual balrogs here and there. Scattered amidst the damned souls were countless lesser demons that had no true species and were little better than the mutated souls of the dead. It had been the four-armed drolkuls that had bored through the ground and erupted in the midst of the soldiers on the front lines. The demons were large and strong enough to tear men apart two limbs at a time. The muscular, winged, whip-wielding balrogs were the true leaders on the field, directing the efforts of their fellow demons and the lesser souls of the damned.

  But it was the childris that Birch most feared. A single childris, with its lightning-quick reflexes, was a match for any paladin, and a group of more than two or three was a death sentence. The few times Birch had come across them in Hell, he’d hidden or run away from any groups larger than these. Even with Sultana’s help, they’d almost been more than he could handle at times. It was the childris that had ultimately deprived him of Sultana; his noble mount had thrust Birch aside and took a childris spear in her flank that should have cleaved Birch’s head in two. Even with that wound, she’d fought at his side until she was too far gone, and Birch’s healing powers insufficient to save her.

  Sultana had given birth to Selti, somehow managing to hide her pregnancy from Birch during their travels. Dakkans had a long gestation period, but even so, Birch wondered who the fathering dakkan had been. As for the apparent prolonging of her pregnancy, Birch could only assume it had been due to the altered passage of time on the immortal plane.[28] Two years of time passed for every one year on the mortal world, but during Birch’s twenty years in Hell, he’d aged only the ten years that had passed at home.

  Lost in his memories, Birch did not at first notice the snarling and then whimpering from the courtyard below. It wasn’t until loud shouting and cursing erupted that his attention was drawn to a crowd clustered around two dozen of the mutated souls. The monstrous creatures were surrounded by men with swords drawn and death written plainly on their faces. But the damned souls were making no effort to harm anyone, and indeed were cowering back away from those around them to avoid being harmed themselves. The behavior was unusual enough for Birch to leap from the wall and glide swiftly to the milling throng. He landed in the space between the creatures and two men advancing with swords.

  “What’s going on here?” Birch asked quietly, turning his burning gaze on the two men so they blanched and backed away from him. Even in the rosy glow of dawn, the fires in Birch’s eyes were unmistakable.

  “We discovered these beasts hiding away in one of the back hallways,” a man said, pointing toward a door in the wall. The walls between each courtyard were thick, but hollow within, allowing protected movement of forces to the arrow slits set all around each courtyard. The damned souls had been found in a storage room, hiding in the darkness until they were discovered by a group of archers looking for more arrows. When they were found, they cowered back and didn’t attack the archers, but the soldiers summoned help and the mutated souls were forced out into the courtyard at sword point.

  “So they’re prisoners of war,” Birch said after the man finished explaining how they’d been found, “and you want to murder them.”

  “They’re not men,” someone yelled in protest. “They’re monsters! They need to be destroyed before
they turn on us!”

  “Look at them,” Birch said, motioning to the cowering mass of the damned. “Do they look like they’re doing anything more than desperately hoping you won’t cut their heads off? They’re not a threat.”

  “They’re monsters!” someone shouted again, and others took up the cry. The crowd started to mutter angrily, and some started forward on the other side of the damned souls from where Birch was standing. Birch moved over and glared at them, his eyes flaring fiercely as he drew his sword. The men backed off.

  “These creatures are now under the protection of the Prism, as per the articles of war and taking of prisoners,” Birch said formally. “If you so much as spit on one of them while I am present, you won’t like the consequences.”

  The men in the crowd hesitated, looking at each other for strength. Then Danner’s denarae friend, Trebor, pushed through the crowd and walked up to Birch. Danner followed quickly on his heels, but no one else came. Danner and Trebor drew their swords and stood apart from Birch, standing at equal distances from each other so the three of them formed a triangle around the cluster of the mutated damned.

  “Someone said you needed some help, Uncle Birch,” Danner called calmly over his shoulder. “Garnet spared us to stand with you.”

  Birch heard a croaking sound from behind him, and he turned to look in amazement as one of the damned souls tugged on his gray cloak.

  “H…help us,” the creature said, its monstrous throat mangling the words. “We don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “What are you doing here?” Birch asked, kneeling down to bring himself level with the stooped creature. Someone stepped forward, sword in hand, but a single glance from Birch was enough to cause the man to drop his weapon and retreat back to the safety of the crowd.

  “We were forced to fight,” the creature said. “Our spirits were twisted and given this form, since we refused to bear weapons against our families and people, and we were made to attack. We acted like beasts, and we couldn’t think. Then we came here, and all of us, when we saw the pillar of rock sticking up from the ground, we were suddenly able to think clearly. We broke away from the fighting and tried to hide, not knowing what to do. We tried talking to two men who first found us, but they wouldn’t listen. They tried to kill us.”