Jon nodded, smiling lightly.
“It will take more than an army of demons to stop your uncle,” he said with a smile. “Hasn’t stopped him before, and I don’t imagine he’ll let it hamper him now. He and Selti are both in good shape – he actually stopped by a few minutes ago to drop off that accursed bolt.” Jon stopped smiling and put a hand on Danner’s shoulder. Then he said, more seriously, “Even your uncle would have been overrun in time, if you hadn’t gotten to him. As it was, he needed only minor healing to restore his normal, pigheaded health. You saved his life, Danner. Selti’s, too,” he added with a wry smile.
Danner looked down and saw the gray dakkan, still in his drann shape, curled up in the space between Danner’s knees. He shifted his legs without waking the sleeping reptile.
“Where are we?” Danner asked, looking at their surroundings.
“In a storage room in one of the walls of the Barrier,” Jon answered. “There’s some pretty fierce fighting going on out there, so Perky and I dragged you in here. I came upon him trying to move you himself, and I lent him a hand. Then I let him go off to heal the wounded while I agreed to stay here with you. Truth is, I’m exhausted from staying up with the injured for the last several days, and I needed the chance to sit still for a while. I don’t know where that man gets his energy.”
Danner tried to rise, but his limbs felt weak and he immediately sank back to the ground.
“Careful there,” Jon said. “You might be a little while before you’re fully recovered.”
“I need to get back out there,” Danner said, allowing some of his frustration to seep into his voice. He still felt a residue of dread leftover from his nightmares, and the thought of being cooped up in the store room grated on his nerves with an almost physical pain. “I need to be out there,” he repeated.
“You’ll be on your feet in no time, Danner,” Jon reassured him. “In the meantime, let others do your fighting for you.”
- 5 -
Marc caught up to the man quickly. The panicked paladin was too scared of Marc’s pursuit to bother locking doors behind him - or even closing them in some cases as Marc drew closer - so every door slowed the Blue as he tested the handle, while Marc had only to burst through those doors the Blue had already gone through.
In the end, Marc caught him because the other paladin had mistakenly entered a room with no other exits. The cornered paladin turned, sword in hand, but Marc saw naked fear in his eyes.
“You’re the dybbuk, aren’t you?” Marc asked harshly. “You killed Vander Wayland.”
The paladin’s eyes widened in shock, and now he looked terrified as Marc drew ever closer.
“Wait,” the dybbuk said. “I can tell you much about your enemies. I know their plans; their goals. This war isn’t what you think it’s about.”
“What’s it about then?” Marc took two more steps, his eyes narrowed.
“I’ll tell you if you let me live.”
“You’re going to have to do more than that if you want me to stay my sword,” Marc said. “You’re responsible for a lot of bloodshed.”
“I know how they’re planning to attack,” the dybbuk said. “This isn’t the only place. I can tell you…”
He cut off with a choking sound and his eyes bulged in his head. His entire body lifted in the air a foot and dangled as though an invisible noose was strung about his neck. He clawed at his neck and choked out a scream, his legs flailing madly. He stretched out one hand and looked at Marc.
“Help me!” he screamed frantically in terror. Then he gave one final lurch and his arms fell limp at his side. His legs twitched a few times, then he fell like a puppet with its strings cut and lay in a heap on the floor.
Chapter 37
People can and will always surprise you. It sounds so simple, yet we take for granted every moment of every day that they won’t do just that.
- Knerry Raltin,
“Forms of Communication” (102 AL)
- 1 -
Flasch was falling closer to the abomination when it abruptly leaned forward, drawing away from him. Instead of landing neatly on its shoulder, he now found himself aimed at the middle of its back. He quickly swept his sword from the sheath and plunged it into the nightmarish flesh of the abomination, using the impaled blade to hold himself steady against it.
The enormous demon felt the blessed steel biting into its skin and reared back from the Barrier, flailing madly with both arms and writhing in agony. Two monstrous arms reached back to swipe Flasch from the demon’s back, and the Violet paladin received a heavy clout across the back of his head as one of the fingers of melted flesh whipped past him.
Flasch lost his hold on his sword and fell downward, his head spinning from the blow. His cloak billowed up behind him, then abruptly his descent was arrested with a sharp jerk. He looked up and saw something had caught his cloak and was holding him in place with his back against the wall of melted flesh. He was a full twenty feet from his sword, which was still caught in the abomination’s back. The hilt was too small a target for the abomination to grasp with its enormous fingers.
With a wrench of his arms, Flasch reached backward and tried to find something behind him to grasp. Suddenly his hand was being held in a firm handshake, and he was able to twist himself about so his body was facing the abomination. His cloak was released from whatever had held it, and Flasch could now see his hand was being gripped by the hand of a damned soul melted onto the abomination’s flesh. The face corresponding to the hand stared at Flasch with a pitiful expression of hope: hope that Flasch might destroy the demon and end the tormented existence of the damned souls attached to its being.
“I’ll do my best,” Flasch promised in response to the silent plea. “God, give me strength.”
With the aid of the damned souls, Flasch was able to climb back up the wall of the abomination’s flesh. The demon’s arms were still flailing about in pain, making his ascent even more difficult.
One of the arms swept down toward Flasch in a blind attack. He leapt back and to the side and just cleared the wild swing of the thick arm, then glided back to the abomination and landed only a couple feet lower than he’d been. This time Flasch was able to finish his ascent to his sword. With the grasping hands of the damned souls to steady him, Flasch drew his sword and whipped it in three neat strokes, completing the holy symbol.
The three marks caught fire and seemed to burn inward as though seeking the demon inside the conglomeration of flesh. When it was clear his job was finished, Flasch clamored up the abomination’s shoulder and leapt the short distance toward the Barrier.
- 2 -
Alicia grimaced in pain as the demon’s claw swept across her forearm, drawing a long, thin scratch as the sharp talon grazed her flesh. She beat the smaller creature back with her sword, which had little effect against the unholy hide of the grinning demon, but it at least served to keep the infernal beast away from her. Alicia sported a number of cuts and gashes from the demon’s claws – all of which somehow already showed signs of infection – and not a few bruises from where its fist had clubbed her to the side.
Somewhere in the room, she knew Billy and Jeremy were fighting, but she couldn’t see them. She could hear them, though, as the two would-be paladins cried out to each other and fought against the demons who had entered the room. Maki was to Alicia’s right, and she could see he was hard-pressed by the creature he was fighting.
There was a shout of astonishment and a whoop of joy and triumph, and through a momentary lull in the fighting Alicia could see the cloak Billy wore had turned to a brilliant yellow color. His sword bit into a demon’s flesh with more success than any of their previous attacks, and a second later the demon was a cloud of dust at the new paladin’s feet.
A moment later, Maki let out a similar shout of elation as his cloak shifted to a resplendent blue, and he soon cut down his opponent as well. He rushed to help Alicia, but another, larger demon cut him off and threw him forcibly agains
t a wall.
Alicia’s opponent chose that moment to attack, and she avoided serious injury only by throwing herself to the side. She landed on the lower mattress of the bunked beds and rolled to the other side. The demon tried crawling after her, so Alicia turned and rolled through the next pair of beds, then grasped the top bunk and hauled herself onto the upper mattress. Before the demon could get the whole of its body through the narrow space between the bunks, Alicia hurled herself from the top bunk and landed on the bed right above the demon. Her weight caused the frame to tip precariously, and she shifted herself so the whole thing fell to the floor, pinning the small demon beneath the heavy bulk of the bed frames.
Alicia tumbled to the ground and rolled to prevent serious injury, but she felt fire race up her leg from her ankle. She looked up and saw Jeremy clutching his sword arm with one hand while still holding off one of the demons. Maki fought against two of the creatures at once and was barely able to prevent them from overwhelming him. Billy was fighting fiercely and killed one of the larger, four-armed demons. He spun to help Jeremy, but another one of the demons slipped behind Billy, leapt onto his shoulders, and ripped savagely at his throat with a clawed hand.
A spray of blood washed across Jeremy’s face, and for a moment the young trainee was petrified. Before any of the demons could take advantage of his incapacitation, Jeremy recovered and screamed wordlessly in fury. He attacked with a new savagery that battered the demons away like they were no stronger than children.
Alicia turned as the demon behind her finally freed itself from the trap of the bunk beds. The creature howled and turned toward her, its eyes burning fiercely. She tried to stand to run away, but her ankle gave way before she even made it upright. She cried out in pain and started crawling away as quickly as she could, but the demon leapt forward with claws outstretched.
Then suddenly something crimson and furiously fast leapt in front of Alicia and seemed to engulf the demon. The pain from her ankle washed through Alicia, and her vision swam dizzily as the room spun in circles. Every time she tried to focus on what was happening before her, the demon and its assailant seemed to slide to the side and she couldn’t focus on them.
As a loud scream burst from pain-filled lungs nearby, Alicia’s sight went from red to black and she swam into nothingness.
- 3 -
Across the battlefield, Michael had landed safely on the abomination’s shoulders, but after his first cut into its flesh, the demon had clubbed him with one enormous fist and sent him reeling away. Another blow knocked him off the demon’s shoulders, and Michael glided down to the ground amidst a press of slavering creatures that turned on him in an instant.
Alone and surrounded by a sea of Hellish creatures, Michael knew he would not last long. He fought with every ounce of skill he possessed, but he was being pressed from all sides, and it was impossible to defend against attacks that struck at his front and back at the same time. He stayed constantly in motion, using the tactics he’d learned from unarmed combat to disrupt his opponents uncoordinated attacks and keep himself free, but there were simply too many of them. No matter how he fought, it was never quick enough or fierce enough to hold the swarming creatures at bay. Michael’s struggle drew him ever further away from the abomination, preventing him from at least completing that part of his mission before being overrun.
Just as he was beginning to seriously fear for his life, Michael heard a strong mental kythe from Brican Dok.
“Michael, hold up your hand and hang on for dear life!”
Without breaking the rhythm of his attacks, Michael thrust his left hand into the air, palm spread wide. He felt something smack into his hand and instinctively he clutched at it even as something enormous roared by overhead and he was wrenched from the ground into the air. He looked up and saw the backside of a yellow dakkan and the inverted head of Garnet’s father, his hair falling down toward Michael. Garet jo’Meerkit looked up - down - at Michael and smiled grimly. Then the world was shifting as the yellow dakkan completed its barrel-roll and returned upright, touched the ground briefly, then unfurled its wings and leapt into the air.
Garet hauled Michael awkwardly onto the dakkan’s back behind him as the beast pumped its wings frantically to gain altitude.
“God bless you, Garet,” Michael yelled into the Red paladin’s ear.
“I got the idea from that winged buddy of yours, that Danner boy, saving his uncle,” Garet yelled over his shoulder. The mountainous Red paladin thumped his dakkan’s hide with one thick hand. “Didn’t know if a dakkan, even one as smart and skilled as Shelly, could hold upside down long enough to pull it off, not to mention the spin and liftoff, but wings and demons, it was worth a shot. Good thing you saw me coming, or I’d have grabbed you by the scruff of your neck.”
Garet grinned fiercely and Michael was forced to laugh. He looked over the side of the yellow dakkan and saw an orange-scaled dakkan closing on the abomination. A score of paladins flew in a tight formation to cover his approach, battling to keep the hordes of demonic foes at bay. A Blue paladin leapt nimbly atop the creature’s head long enough to make three swift sword-strokes, then he jumped free and slowed his descent long enough for his dakkan to sweep up beneath him. The pair then wheeled away just as the abomination was destroyed, their escort close behind them.
Instead of melting into dust like most demons, the abomination began to fall apart. The damned souls comprising the creature fell to the ground like a mass of rats fleeing a drowning ship, and the abomination slowly disintegrated into a thousand separate pieces. The demon within was revealed for a brief second before it was reduced to black dust that dissipated in the wind. By the time the demon was gone, all that remained of the abomination was a pile of bodies on the ground, which slowly collapsed on itself as the damned souls themselves turned to dust and blew away.
- 4 -
Marc hurried back to the conference hall where the remnants of the Prismatic Council were just finishing off the demons that had so nearly wiped them out. When Marc walked into the room, he saw a cloud of dust spiraling on invisible wind currents across the floor, then it was gone.
“Is everyone here alright?” he asked. Only six members of the Council, which had originally boasted three times that number, had survived the surprise attack. Their aides were all slain, their bodies strewn amidst the carnage in the room.
“We will be,” a Green paladin said, already working on his fellow Council members to heal their wounds.
“What happened?” Marc asked. He spoke with an authority to which he had no claim, but for a wonder the men did not react defensively or reject his presence. Instead, they responded to him as though he had command of the situation.
A Red paladin showing only a few scratches stepped forward to respond.
“We were in session when Jackson said he heard something at the door,” the Red began.
“Who is Jackson?” Marc asked brusquely, realizing he knew none of the names of the men before him. With the exception of the Red who had spoken, they were all newer members of the Prismatic Council, replacements for the corrupted men Marc and his friends had hunted down and captured. “And what is your name?”
“Paladin Daevis Schist, at your service, brother. Jackson Haerta was the bastard you just chased down,” the Red replied, his lip twitching in disgust. “He asked Bart Shivrey to unbar the door, and as soon as it was free the demons came crashing through and attacked us. One of the demons tore Bart limb from limb while Jackson watched and laughed, then Jackson joined the fight on the demons’ side.
“A lot of us fell in the first rush, and it was probably only a matter of time before we were overcome completely,” Daevis said. “You came just at the right time and turned the tide. Thank you, brother.”
The Red paladin saluted him, as did those Council members not currently engaged in healing or being healed. All told, two Reds, two Blues, a Yellow, and a Green paladin had survived the slaughter. All bore serious wounds that had received m
inimal treatment from healing prayers – anything more and they would likely need a healing sleep to recover, and none of them had that luxury.
“What should we do?” one of the paladins, a Blue, asked.
“Scour the rest of the compound,” Marc answered when it was clear they were still looking to him for answers. “Group as you feel safe, but spread out. Meet me back at…” he gasped. “The trainees’ barracks!”
He spun and dashed across the room to the door through which he’d first entered. He called back over his shoulder, “Daevis, follow me. The rest of you, get going as soon as you can!”
The Red paladin was close behind Marc by the time he lunged up the stairs to the barracks. Marc’s worst fears were realized when he saw the door to the barracks broken open. He threw his shoulder against the shattered wood and burst into the room, sword at the ready.
He saw Maki leaning against one of the bunked beds, clutching what remained of his right leg. A huge chunk was torn from the flesh of his thigh, and Marc could see the bone under a thick pool of blood. Daevis rushed past Marc and knelt at Maki’s side to provide what healing he could until they could get the man to a Green paladin. Marc saw with stunned detachment that Maki’s cloak had shifted to blue, indicating he was now a full paladin.
The rest of the room dawned on Marc’s senses, slowly unfolding the story from the scene of horror. Billy’s body lay in a heap on the stone floor, his throat and face a hideous mess of blood. His cloak was now a vibrant yellow color, but half the material was stained red with his own blood, and it was immediately obvious he was already dead.
Across the room, Jorgins lay sprawled across another body, and it took Marc a moment to realize his cloak was not soaked with blood; Jorgins had, in the last minutes of his life, become a paladin of the Red Facet. Tears welled up in Marc’s eyes as he stared at the broken body of the boy he remembered as being so fearful and timid.
“Gerard would never have believed it,” Marc said.
Then he realized that if the body beneath Jorgins was still there, it couldn’t be a demon. Which left only one option. Marc rushed over and cautiously lifted Jorgins in his arms, then laid the slain Red paladin gently on the ground.
The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) Page 52