Selti dodged Birch’s feet as best he could, whimpering in a pain so great he couldn’t concentrate enough to change shape and help his paladin fight. Selti watched, helpless, as the press of demons grew overwhelming and Birch was enclosed on all sides.
- 2 -
Danner slid behind the wheel and sent the buggy’s engine roaring to life. Marc leapt into the back, and Trebor jumped over Danner’s head and landed in the front passenger’s seat. Before the other two were settled, Danner slammed his foot onto the accelerator and they sped from the shed in a squeal of smoke and fumes. They raced past the guard at the chapterhouse gates, then Danner whipped the wheel to the side. The buggy tipped up on two wheels as they turned the sharp corner, and the two airborne wheels came down on the wall of a narrow alley. The supine body of a drunken human passed under the chassis of the vehicle, but they were gone before he could focus his bleary eyes on the vanished buggy.
“Danner, do you know where you’re going?” Marc asked, his question relayed via Trebor’s kything.
“The man, or dybbuk, or whatever he was, gave Brican directions to a warehouse that’s several blocks from here,” Danner replied the same way. “I used to pass by it all the time on my way to and from Faldergash’s place during our training.”
They cleared the alley and the buggy dropped back to all four wheels, allowing Danner to accelerate safely again. Cutting through the narrow alley was dangerous, because of the insane technique necessary to fit through, but it shaved precious minutes off their travel time.
They reached a wide street where Danner had to make a left-hand turn, and he slowed just enough so he wouldn’t lose traction and fly into the buildings lining the cobbled road. As a city designed by dwarves, Nocka was laid out with perfectly straight streets and right-angle corners at every intersection. It made navigation easy, but turning at any great speed was somewhat problematic.
At this late hour, and with the ongoing war only a couple miles away, the streets were deserted, so Danner wasn’t worried about hitting any pedestrians. He did see a few frightened people scurrying from building to building, but they heard the roaring engine of his buggy approaching and stayed clear.
Trebor pointed to a wide road on their left, then spoke in Danner’s mind, “Once we’ve got her, that road will take us back toward camp. Marc says it’s a wide, straight-away that will take us all the way to the Barrier if need be, so we can grab her and haul ass out of there if necessary.”
Danner gripped the wheel with grim determination, careful not to give in to his inner tension. Moving at such a reckless speed, the slightest mistake would probably wreck the buggy, at best, and at worst kill them all. Then no one would save Alicia. Danner’s hands clenched, then he relaxed them.
“We’ll get her back,” Trebor kythed with as much confidence as he could muster.
“God help the man or demon who tries to stop me,” Danner replied grimly.
As they neared the warehouse, Danner killed the engine and allowed the buggy to coast forward almost noiselessly. He braked softly, and as soon as they stopped, the three men slipped free and approached the warehouse cautiously.
“Trebor, sense anything inside?” Danner asked.
“Alicia is in there,” Trebor confirmed. “She’s scared. Hang on.”
Trebor’s kythe fell silent. Then pictures appeared in Danner’s head, and he realized he was seeing through Alicia’s eyes.
“I told her we’re coming,” Trebor kythed. “I can sense seven men in the room, but that one closest to Alicia, I can’t sense him at all. He makes eight, and I think we found our dybbuk.”
The man in question was off to Alicia’s left side, and when Trebor asked her to shift her gaze they found out her head and body were tied to a post in the middle of the room. One of the men was behind Alicia with a sword ready to slay her, but when Trebor tried carefully to kythe in his mind, he still couldn’t see the dybbuk. The man was facing the other way.
“How do we do this?” Trebor asked. “Marc wants to sneak in and take them from behind.”
“They know we’re coming,” Danner replied. “I wouldn’t trust any supposedly secretive way for us to get in. How do you two feel about a little frontal assault?”
“Are you crazy?”
“Probably, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work,” Danner thought to him, “and we’ve got an advantage they don’t know about.”
Trebor read Danner’s intentions and couldn’t suppress a mental chuckle. Then he stopped and grew worried.
“Just be careful,” he kythed to Danner. “You know what…”
“I know,” Danner cut him off. “She’s worth the risk. Have her look up as far as she can to check the ceiling.”
Quickly, Trebor relayed their plan to Marc, then the three of them hurried back to the buggy. Danner shifted the buggy out of gear, then they pushed the vehicle fifty yards backward and behind a building.
“Go get ready and let me know when,” Danner said. “Treb, you know your first priority. You two just get to Alicia. I’ll be by your side as soon as possible.”
They nodded and hurried off into the night. Trebor spent several minutes finding a building tall enough for his purposes, then burst through the door and hurried up the stairs. He emerged on the roof and leapt off the edge, glided down with his cloak, and landed softly on the edge of the warehouse where Alicia was held. There were numerous skylights, which Trebor had seen through Alicia’s eyes, and as he’d hoped, there were some closer to where Alicia was tied up. Trebor peeked through one cautiously and saw the room below in murky detail.
Trebor counted only seven guards now. The man closest to Alicia, the one they suspected of being the dybbuk, was no longer there, or at least Trebor couldn’t see him.
“He left through a side door somewhere behind me,” Alicia replied when Trebor asked her. He quickly relayed the change to the others, but Danner brushed it aside. Marc was in place by a first-floor window, so Trebor gave Danner the “go-ahead.”
Trebor drew his sword and readied himself. He wasn’t a paladin, but nevertheless, Trebor murmured an altiara.
“Lord God, forgive these men for what they do, and forgive us all should their deaths prove necessary. Help me to forgive myself as well. Protect and guide us, Lord.”
He heard Danner and Marc doing the same in their thoughts as he scratched an image of the Tricrus in the grime on top of the roof. He stared at it, thinking of his shattered dreams. In the distance, Trebor heard the engine rev up and the tires squeal as Danner charged forward.
“Now!” Danner’s thoughts shouted out, and Trebor smashed through the glass skylight with the hilt of his sword just as Danner’s buggy came crashing through the main doors of the warehouse. Trebor leapt through and glided downward. He mindblasted the thoughts of the guard behind Alicia and sent the man to the floor clutching his head in agony. By the time Trebor’s feet touched down, the guard was unconscious.
Marc, meanwhile, had bashed through a window on the right side of the room and cut down one of the men, and he was now rushing toward a second. Trebor looked to Danner and saw a scene of chaos.
Danner had spun the buggy as soon as he’d entered the room, and the back-end had smashed into one man and crushed him against a support beam. The beam had also served to stop the buggy’s spin, but Danner was no longer anywhere near the vehicle. He had asolved his wings and thrown one man across the length of the warehouse, not even bothering to draw his sword.
The last two men were awestruck at the sight of a vengeful angel in their midst, and their surprise lasted until Danner’s fist caved in one man’s head. The second had the presence of mind to swing his sword at Danner, which cut through his leather armor but bounced off his body without leaving so much as a bruise. Danner turned his gaze toward the man, and Trebor was shocked to see that Danner’s eyes had begun to glow along with his wings. It was as though a blue flame had erupted and had engulfed Danner’s eyes in an azure inferno. With a snarl, Danner punche
d the second man in the chest, shattering his sternum. The man dropped his sword and clutched his chest, then fell to the ground dead.
Trebor looked away and saw Marc finishing off the last man, then the Orange paladin rushed to his sister’s side.
“I’m fine,” Alicia said as soon as her mouth was free. She rushed across the room and threw herself into Danner’s arms. He held her tightly, his wings still glowing and his eyes still aflame.
“Oh, Danner,” she cried. “He said you’d come for me.”
“Who?” Danner asked. His voice sounded cold.
“The Yellow paladin who came for me,” she said. “He came to Fal’s house and said he’d been sent to bring me to you, but when we left these men jumped me and tied me up. He said I was bait to bring you here, and you were sure to come for me.”
“It wasn’t a very good trap, if they wanted to catch or kill Danner,” Marc said, looking about him. “Especially since they even told him to bring two of us along.”
“That’s what the other man said,” Alicia told them. “I never got to see him, but I heard him before he left. He said his job was accomplished just in having drawn you away from your uncle and a trap outside the Barrier. He didn’t care whether you rescued me or not. That’s why he left.”
“So it’s not me, it’s my uncle,” Danner said, and now his voice wasn’t so much cold as it was a raging blizzard. He made a quick decision, his thoughts sharp and precise like the blade of a sword. “Marc, take her to the Prism’s chapterhouse as quickly as you can and stay with her. Trebor, let’s go.”
“But…” Alicia said, reluctant to let him go. Danner gently disengaged her hands, showing real warmth for the first time since they’d broken into the room. Alicia looked up and flinched at the sight of his eyes.
“Alicia, I have to go help him,” Danner replied softly. “They wanted to keep me away for a reason. That means I can help him.” He pressed his cheek to hers. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Danner,” she replied, and quickly kissed his lips. “Go, then, quickly.”
“Let’s move, Treb. You’re driving,” Danner said over his shoulder, already running to the buggy. He dekinted his wings, jumped onto the back of the vehicle, and started digging through a pile of stuff on the floor. Trebor slid into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine, then raced off.
“Where are we going?” Trebor’s kythe was calm and surprisingly soft in Danner’s mind, clearly audible despite the roar of the engine and the ripping wind.
“Take that straight-away you mentioned,” Danner replied.
“You sure about this?” Trebor kythed.
“If they want me out, I want me in,” Danner replied grimly. “If they want me out, that means I can help.”
“That’s a big assumption, Danner,” Trebor warned. “You could be throwing your life away.”
“He’s my uncle. I’ve got to try.”
Trebor nodded silently. As he turned his head to look down a side street, out of the corner of his eye he saw frenzied motion in the back of the vehicle.
“What in San’s name are you doing back there?” Trebor asked. “Talk to me. What’s the plan?”
“Just a bit of cloak practice,” Danner replied. With swift, practiced movements, Danner slid himself into a harness with a large expanse of canvas attached to it with strong, lightweight cords. As soon as the harness was in place, he reactivated his wings and felt strength and energy flow through his body in a wave of cold, ecstatic power. He clipped a strong rope to the front of the harness and secured the other end to the buggy. Without another pair of hands, using the winch to let out the rope was impossible.
Since having his angelic heritage dominant made Trebor’s kythes all but impossible, Danner leaned forward and put his mouth near the denarae’s ear. “Get up as fast as you can go,” he shouted. “Don’t brake until you absolutely have to. I need to be as close as possible to keep up speed.”
“You’re insane,” Trebor shouted back. “You know that, right?”
Danner grinned in reply, but the expression faded after only a moment. It felt as though his emotions were locked away somewhere deep inside him, and it was a struggle to feel anything. In their place was an overwhelming sense of invincibility and power that scared Danner even as he drank in its intoxicating nourishment. A fleeting thought told him there had to be some other way of helping his uncle, but it was washed away in the ecstasy of immortal power welling up from within him.
Trebor turned onto the wide street he’d pointed out before and stomped on the accelerator. The buggy leapt forward with such force that Trebor nearly lost control of the steering wheel. Danner watched their surroundings as best he could, trying to gauge how close they were to the Barrier. When he deemed they were close enough, he threw the canvas out behind him and held on to the back of the buggy with all the strength his immortal heritage gave to him. The canvas ripped at the harness on his back, trying to pull Danner up and away from the buggy. Had Danner’s wings been corporeal, they would have gotten tangled with the cords of the canvas parachute. As it was, the twisting cords passed through harmlessly, sending chill, tingling sensations down Danner’ spine.
Trebor held up one hand to signal him, but Danner waited a few seconds longer before letting go of the buggy’s frame.
He was ripped backward with a jolt that made his jaws clap together with a loud snap he could hear even over the popping of the canvas behind him. The rope connecting him to the buggy fell limp as Danner started to descend, then the slack ran out and snapped Danner forward with another jolt. He started to gain altitude, then leveled off as the rope balanced the canvas’s tendency to rise with the forward momentum of the buggy.
From his lofty height, Danner could now see not only the Barrier, but the plains beyond. He saw a few torches near a dark circle of seething bodies and knew he would find his uncle in the center of that Hell-spawned mass. He watched the distance between the buggy and the Barrier grow quickly less and less, and then he saw Trebor waving his hands wildly and Danner knew his friend would have to decelerate now.
Danner cut the harness from his body and soared forward, losing some of the momentum he’d gained from being towed by the buggy. He pumped his wings though, concentrating on speed, and he shot over the top of the Barrier as little more than a streak of blue against the black sky. People beneath him stared upward in awe and shock, unable to discern who or what it was flying overhead. Most came to the easy conclusion that he was an angel coming down at last from Heaven to deliver them from the demons’ clutches. Danner had already passed by when a thunderous cheer rang out all across the Barrier.
Danner looked down, but he was too high to see details. Then abruptly his vision sharpened like a hawk’s, and he could see everything down to a blade of dried, blood-soaked grass sticking up from between a demon’s clawed toes. He searched only a second before he found Birch, still standing and fighting desperately against the overwhelming press of Hellish monstrosities around him.
Any second now, Birch would be overwhelmed. Flaring his wings only slightly, Danner shifted his aim and bolted downward like a streak of lightning. He bellowed ferociously, the sound roaring from his throat with the force of an avalanche. Everyone on the ground, including Birch, looked up in surprise and saw Danner rushing down. The demons, sensing the presence of a holy immortal, backed away quickly, too shocked to think clearly, or they might have realized their overwhelming numbers were more than enough to stand up to a single heavenly presence.
Birch, however, recognized Danner and reacted immediately to his arrival. In one smooth motion, Birch sheathed his sword and scooped Selti up from the ground, then held a hand skyward. Too late, the demons realized what was happening and they made a rush at Birch. Danner pulled up at the last second and grasped Birch’s hand, nearly crushing the bones in his uncle’s wrist. The two paladins soared into the sky, leaving the press of demons howling in fury below them.
Danner looked over his shoulder and
saw a black wave of flying creatures sweeping toward him, but Danner was going too fast and knew they would never catch up to him. He glanced down to see that his uncle was all right, then concentrated on getting back home. When they were almost to the Barrier, with no pursuit close behind them, Danner knew they were safe.
- 3 -
Malith recovered from his shock quickly, his thoughts fierce and savage. Even as the angelic figure was lifting Birch clear from Malith’s trap, the Black paladin was reaching for a crossbow. He glanced at the bolt loaded in the weapon and snarled in malicious pleasure.
He followed the glowing target carefully, leading him with an expert’s keen eye. Without any immediate danger of pursuit, the winged figure was flying in a straight path, making it easier for Malith to aim. His finger squeezed slowly on the trigger until it reached the last possible point of resistance. When the pair crossed the right point in his sights, Malith’s finger squeezed back a hair’s breadth more, and the bolt leapt free of the crossbow with a vicious hiss.
Malith watched the black streak until it became invisible in the distance. Then suddenly the blue-winged shape lurched in the air and Birch fell free. The Gray-cloaked paladin caught his descent a second later, but the angelic being kept going and then fell almost straight down. Malith lost sight of them both as they disappeared behind the wall of the Barrier, but he knew he’d gotten him.
Whoever or whatever it was, the mysterious rescuer had plummeted to the ground unchecked and was likely dead.
Chapter 35
Healing works better when the paladin praying has a clear idea of the injury, but the most complex injuries and nearly all diseases are beyond our ability to heal. Reds study anatomy to better their skills as a warrior, but Greens study anatomy to better heal the results of such violence.
- Green Paladin Garth Vetter,
“Anatomy and Healing” (654 AM)
- 1 -
Marc glanced down the street, first to his left, then the right. The sun was still a ways off from rising, and the streets were dark and hauntingly empty. A dying torch sputtered in a sconce above Marc’s head, and he held up a hand to block the light as he peered about. Seeing no one, he hurried across the intersection, Alicia in tow behind him. Sin slid into view from behind a tall building and gleamed balefully down on the Orange paladin and his twin sister.
The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) Page 49