by Stuart Slade
Off to his left, Galkin saw baldricks, a dozen or more of them in a ditch, behind a mound. Were they hiding? Or wounded and looking for a place to die? It didn’t matter, he gave his orders and the tank swung around, parallel with the ditch. Then he felt one side drop as the treads went into the ditch and he drove along it, crushing the baldricks sheltering within. Glakin heard screams, perhaps the baldricks, perhaps just the metal tracks as they ran over the suspension rollers. Then his tank levelled again and he made another turn back to his original route. The Phelgethon River lay ahead, the gains the baldrick army had fought for two days to secure and for which they had sacrificed so much had been wiped out by the tanks in less that twenty minutes.
South of the City of Dis This time Belial had taken his wyvern low, down beneath the dusty brown overcast that was nearly ubiquitous in hell. With the human ‘aircraft’ still very evident, screaming and roaring somewhere over the Phlegethon river, Belial thought it best to stay inconspicuous. What he saw beneath him steadily drained away the elation from his sudden elevation. Countless demon warriors, streaming towards Dis, some still as ordered legions but many as individual squads or even disorganised crowds. The horrible wounds that marked many of the demons, the battered or missing equipment, the cries and wails both audible and telepathic, all made it clear that this was an army retreating in defeat. Belial had cast his mind out, trying to make contact with a commander to learn what manner of catastrophe had inflicted such ruin on the grand armies of hell. It was no use though, despite being leagues from the front lines his mind still rang from the impossibly powerful psychic emanations from the massed human mages. The din made it impossible to hold a coherent conversation from a thousand feet up and Belial couldn’t risk stopping. ‘But where are all the harpies?’ he thought.
Belial soon reached the far edge of the ragged demon column and had resigned himself to remaining ignorant of the details until he next returned to Dis. As he looked up from the ground a flicker of movement caught his eye. Sure enough, at the far end of a low valley he could make out a group of tiny flapping shapes. He spurred his mount to greater effort and it surged ahead, making up the distance to the other flyers which quickly resolved themselves into six of his own wyvern riders. The beast were flying slowly; two had flanks marked with horrible gashes and burns and another had wing membranes so shredded that Belial was surprised it was still airborne. The riders didn’t look much better.
Count Belial! Aaesurnarthuse’s tone betrayed a strange mix of surprise, relief, fear and exhaustion. The humans… it was a slaughter. Great flocks of harpies, torn from the sky or poisoned on the ground. Fire lances and iron pellets everywhere. Ikaarithanjuur went down on our third strike, they hit him with two huge fire lances… Beelzebub’s forces started to retreat… I took command and ordered a withdrawal. It sounded better than ‘I ran away’, but not much.
It is Grand Duke Belial now. Are there any more of you? Did any others escape? These are all that are left? Belial couldn’t keep the shock out of his mind-voice. A niggling voice told him that Euryale would be furious when she found that her prized war-wyverns had been slaughtered. Furious and heartbroken, Belial thought and was surprised to realize that the thought of her grief saddened him
Belial’s wyvern reached the formation and they automatically fell into a V behind him, the wounded beasts struggling to keep up. Mere hours ago he would have had the flight leader executed for cowardice, but after the events at Satan’s palace he was beginning to understand what fighting the humans must be like. This wasn’t war as demons understood it. It wasn’t even the war he’d imagined, a decades-long conflict between dug-in formations that could be won by disrupting the human’s supply of magic weapons. This was anhiliation, this was vengeance come swift and terrible to smash their strongest holdings and humble their greatest generals, this was… with rising horror Belial realized that this was exactly what the demons had done to hundreds of lower plane worlds, but with speed and efficiency the legions of hell could only dream of. If the humans could not be stopped, and after what he’d seen today that seemed like a very real danger, then the entire demon realm and every demon in it would be slaughtered.
I can’t say my lord. I saw others flying away from the battle, but the sky chariots were on their tails. I fear only a handful made it.
Your two uninjured riders will fly a search pattern and round up any survivors. They are to return to Tartarus after four days at the latest. Your injured riders are to stay together and return at the best speed they can manage. Avoid the humans at all costs. With most of his prized war wyverns destroyed, the count was in no position to write off injured troops. You will escort me and tell me everything you can of the battle. These humans must have weaknesses, and we must identify them. He nearly added ‘before it’s too late’, but there was no point further demoralizing his troops. Quite the opposite, if this continued the demon armies would need hope that the humans could be defeated at all, and he was the only one who could give them that. The secret of Palelabor could be kept no longer.
Chapter Seventy One
Dis-Dysprosium Highway, Hell
His army was disintegrating, dissolving into chaos even while he watched. It had sounded so easy, so sensible, to drop back to a defensible line where he could hold and block the human advance. Demonic warfare had few concepts for defensive operations, mostly the two armies just attacked each other, but defense was the only option he had. Or thought he had for it had turned out that the option existed in name only.
He had picked his defensive ground carefully, a low line of hills, steep on the face the humans would have to climb, gentle behind it. It had been good ground, a good defense line and the humans had got there first. While one of their armies had pinned him on the Phlegethon, another had outflanked him and already taken the position he had picked with such care. What was left of his army had crumpled against their gunfire. His last organized legions had been shattered by mage bolts and sky-chariots that had swarmed all over them
Beelzebub heard the scream that announced the arrival of more sky-chariots and cursed Belial. It was that pathetic minor lord with his wyverns who had given the humans the idea of using their sky chariots to attack forces on the ground. If he’d minded his own business and left war to the Great Dukes who were practiced in it, then his force would not be subject to these shattering attacks. Over his columns of retreating legions, two white sky-chariots made their pass, a stream of objects falling from their bellies and under their winds. The objects stopped abruptly in the air as their tails spread out, then they started to shed a cloud of small balls that dropped over the heads of his soldiers before exploding. By the time the smoke cleared, a gaping rent had been cleared in one of his columns, another legion savagely mauled.
Overhead, four more sky-chariots were already closing in, ugly, ungainly looking beasts compared with the sleek white creations than had just passed. They had flown overhead high up, then one had turned and dived, the others following their leader. They were slower too, much slower and Beelzebub briefly wondered where his harpies were, they could destroy beasts like that. Then he remembered, they were dead, wiped out by sky chariots and a magery to horrible to name or even envisage. His pride, his flock of harpies that had gained him his name of ‘Lord of the Fliers’ were dead, their corpses already rotting on the accursed field of the Phlegethon.
Beelzebub watched with resignation as the Sky Chariots got to work, pouring fire-lances into a mass of his foot soldiers that were clustered on the road. What was it for? His army was gone, defeated, destroyed, savaging the remnants like this made no sense at all. Then his spine started to bristle for two of the sky chariots had turned and seemed to be heading for him. He heard a weird noise that drowned out the wail of their battle-cry a rasping, crackling noise that coincided with fire burning in their nose. A few trident-lengths short of his, the ground erupted in a cloud of dust and broken rock, a cloud that raced across the stony soil of Hell and embraced him. Beelzebub fel
t the slam as the mage bolts tore into his body, felt them bite deep, spreading sickness and destruction permeate him. Without being aware of it, he had dropped to his knees, and he was too tired to move. So tired, tiredness he had never felt before, weakness that made him want to give up and sleep. Overhead, the other two Sky Chariots made their passes and fired two more fire lances. Had Beelzebub been aware they were called Mavericks, he might have appreciated knowing the name of his killer but he didn’t and their impact sent him spiraling down into the sleep that he craved.
Cliffton Council Estate, Nottingham, United Kingdom
It had been ten days now, ten days of being forced to sit here all day staring at the news channels until he had passed out from exhaustion. Even that brought little respite, the foul presence made sure that his sleep was uneasy and his dreams visions of fire and pain. The demons had relaxed their mental leash from time to time, just long enough to see to essential bodily functions, but Christopher was still unable to do so much as leave the house. Every time he’d tried the crushing pain overwhelmed him; after the third day he simply had no fight left in him. The presence did seem to change from day to day, as if different minds were taking control, but he hadn’t been able to identify specific demons.
They’d made him watch Detroit burn and the feeling of glee had been even stronger than for Sheffield. The demons seemed certain that the destruction of humanity was inevitable and Christopher had despaired. But when President Bush had made his defiant speech promising swift retaliation, a flicker of hope had returned – not because of the man’s inarticulate rhetoric, but because the echoes of harsh laughter in his head had rung hollow somehow. Finally the pictures had come, supposedly ‘before and after’ infra-red images of ‘Satan’s greatest stronghold’. The reaction from the hellish presence was difficult to read but seemed to be disbelief. Christopher could feel them prying at his mind, trying to use his own memories to justify the idea that the whole thing was a sham. Before the possession he would indeed have been the first to proclaim the reports a hoax, but now he took a bizarre pleasure in telling himself that it was the unvarnished truth. It was a small victory, but it seemed to be enough to make the demon presence lapse into a morose silence for the last day.
The low throbbing of a diesel engine became audible over the television before cutting off. Someone was coming, in a van by the sound of it. Christopher jerked his head around to stare at the front door, struck by a sudden mix of fear and hope. 15 Psyops group perhaps? There had been rumors of a British counter-possession unit on all the blogs… The doorbell rang, its cheerful little electronic tones seeming surreal in the nightmarish situation, and suddenly his body was moving, his possessor operating him like a puppet. He pulled the door back to reveal a lanky youth with a mop of jet black hair. He looked haggard and strangely blank. Behind him was a large yellow van, parked on the street in front of the house and bearing a logo for ‘Dynaflow Plumbing and Electrical - Grimthorpe’.
“Mr Hughes?” Christopher nodded.
“She wants you to come with us. Do you know who I mean?” Christopher had no idea but apparently the demon did because he found himself nodding again.
“Into the back then please. Come on.”
The newcomer pulled the house door shut. Christopher wanted to protest but of course he was powerless to do so. The rear windows of the van were blacked out. He got a brief glimpse of bronze scales and glittering eyes before he was shoved roughly inside and the doors clanged shut, trapping him in the dark interior. There was a brief pause before the engine started up again and the van moved off. He had no way of telling where it was going and in any case the prospect of meeting a demon in the flesh was occupying all of his attention.
With a click the darkness was replaced by the sight of a humanoid shape crouching on the floor, clad only in metallic scales and possessing great bat-like wings, a twitching tail and face taken straight from a nightmare. The thing held a fluorescent lantern in one hand and seemed vaguely female. Then there was pain, something lancing into his chest accompanied by a sputtering crack. Chrisopher cried out and pawed at his ribs, his fingers closing around a handful of quills, which he pulled out. The demon presence was still there but it seemed content to allow him to act on his own initiative for now. For a second he considered attacking the demon but that would be suicide, it had claws that looked razor sharp and more of the quills sticking out of the snakelike growths around its head. A minute passed in silence, save for the sound of the van’s engine.
Christopher was finding it hard to focus. The creature was staring at him, it didn’t seem to want to attack. Finally his curiosity triumphed over his fear.
“Who are you? What are you? Why am I here? What do…”
His voice trailed off as the demoness put a finger to her lips.
“My name is Lakheenahuknaasi, and I am your goddess.” In reality her voice was still raspy, but to Christopher it seemed like honey. “I see evil has made you its servant, but not willingly. I will rid you of it.”
That’s enough Zatheoplekkar, I’ll take it from here
Are you sure? The count ordered me to keep this one alive and possessed.
This is how the angels operated, and you know how devoted their servants were. I will take all responsibility. Release him… please.
Very well.
The winged bronze woman made an extravagant gesture and Christopher slumped forward, suddenly in control of his own body again. The demon presence seemed to be completely gone from his mind! All thanks to this creature, who was seeming more pleasant by the minute. “Thank you… thank you…” The combination of stress, exhaustion and the drug infusion was too much, and Christopher collapsed to the floor, out cold.
Lakheenahuknaasi snorted. The earth-humans were so weak. No matter, she would continue later. She turned back to the magic tome the younger human had given her, unfolding it and waiting for it to come alive again. The human device was a marvel. Specifically, it was a marvel of foolishness. The humans had somehow crammed the contents of a vast library into a single tome, but they had filled that library with details of their entire magical arsenal and handed out copies to their most minor laborers. Her tame human had shown her the invocations of ‘goo gul’ and ‘wiccan pee-dee-ah’, which had revealed to her a treasure trove of secrets. The last was protected by an insidious spell that caused her to constantly lose track of what she was looking for, flipping from page to page until she was reading irrelevant nonsense about ‘collectible card games’ and ‘sonic the hedgehog’. She persevered though, as it clearly warranted such protection because it was so rich in secrets. The task was made even harder by the casual way in which the humans seemed to mix reality and legend. She was fairly sure that this ‘James Bond’ was a most dangerous enemy assassin, but the notion of whole cities being destroyed by pieces of the sun was clearly either mythology or propaganda. The ‘yoo tuub’ and cee-enn-enn spells had shown her images from Abigor’s pathetic defeat – for all his failures, his warriors had managed to slay some humans. She was sure that if the humans had possessed such impossible magics, they would have destroyed his army outright rather than face the demons at such close quarters.
Lakheenahuknaasi had already conveyed more valuable information back to Queen Euryale on her own than Deumos had obtained (or at least, shared with the other demons) with all her thousands of succubae. Her wounds were almost healed and she was fairly sure she could fly again if she had to. The next step was to acquire more worshippers. Here on earth her enthrallment darts held for days at a time, so she could easily build a small cult around herself. She would work her way up into the higher ranks and discover the human’s most secret plans. Certainly she would at least be made a baroness for her accomplishments.
Broken Skull Gallery, Shaft 14, Slocum Mine, Tartarus
Reusikaanophaar stalked through the tunnel, his hooves crunching on the gravel. He was in a particularly foul mood, all of the demons were. The humans seemed to have settled down again, but th
ere was still something wrong with them, something he couldn’t quite put his talon on. Still, he’d heard that the Count’s attacks on the humans had been a resounding success. If Satan granted Belial new lands to rule then he’d be sending his loyal servants to occupy them and with luck that could mean a posting on the surface for Reusikaanophaar.
The light here was very dim, but there was definitely something moving ahead. The demon strained to pick out the details… definitely a human, and its chain was broken off.
“Human! On your knees! What are you doing…”
Instead of throwing himself to the ground in the usual manner, the human had taken to his heels and sprinted away. Reusikaanophaar bellowed as he brought his trident up, then let loose with a lightning bolt. He’d had little practice with the weapon in the last few centuries and the bolt went wide, drawing a spray of rock chips from the wall. The human darted into a side tunnel before he could fire again. The demon roared again and charged after the man, now thoroughly incensed. The stupid little thing couldn’t escape, all the passages here were dead ends. But he probably wouldn’t be allowed to eat it; apparently the convoys of fresh humans from the pit had been interrupted, which meant no killings unless the human actually fought back. Then again, in this remote part of the mine, who’d know?