Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3)

by Brian J Moses

  “Why are we being forced to wait back here?” a voice grumbled somewhere nearby. “Taking orders from a pup and his gray-skinned lackeys.”

  Garnet laid a calming hand on his father’s shoulder as Garet started to turn angrily toward the paladin who’d spoken.

  “I’ve got it, dad,” he murmured. Quickly, but with a casual quietness, Garnet positioned himself an arm’s-reach behind the Orange paladin in question. Garnet didn’t know his name, but he vaguely recognized him as one of the paladins who’d remained in the chapterhouse during most of the fighting on the Barrier.

  “I assume, brother,” Garnet said with deceptive politeness, “that you are referring to my command.”

  The Orange turned and regarded Garnet with a barely concealed sneer. The depreciating expression was marred somewhat by the paladin’s having to crane his neck up to look Garnet in the eyes.

  “As a matter of fact, I was,” the Orange replied. “Youth cannot take the place of experience, and I can name any number of paladins of higher caliber who are doubtlessly more qualified to lead an expedition of this size, your father not the least among them,” he said with a nod toward Garet.

  The intended compliment, if it could be considered such, fell short as the Orange paladin noted the grim expression on Garet’s face. In point of fact, Garet was in charge of the double jintaal itself, but he followed Garnet’s orders without question, knowing full well the feats Shadow Company was capable of achieving and the leadership prowess of his eldest son. Garet’s acquiescence effectively put Garnet in command of the jintaal as well, a fact that clearly didn’t sit well with all of their fellow paladins.

  Garnet regarded the Orange paladin silently for a moment until the shorter man started to fidget under the grim scrutiny. Anyone who had ever trained under Gerard Morningham would have immediately recognized the expression on Garnet’s face, and most of them would have turned and run away rather than come under its stark bleakness.

  “You are, of course correct, brother, in saying that experience is all-important in a scenario such as this,” Garnet said calmly – another warning sign, “but you of all people as an Orange paladin should know better than to confuse age with experience. As such, I might point out that while the recent war was underway, until the demons attacked the chapterhouse you were, if I’m not mistaken, hip-deep in books in the library searching for clues in a vain attempt to gain insight into the tactics and intentions of our foes. I, meanwhile, was up to my armpits in the blood of our brethren trying to defend the Barrier.

  “While you squinted to read books by torchlight, Shadow Company destroyed a powerful demon and secured the aid of reinforcements from Merishank. While you pored over poorly written texts for information we already knew, Shadow Company spearheaded the defenses of the Barrier and accounted for more than ten times the number of slain foes as any other two units combined.”

  Garnet shifted from his deceptively polite voice to the harsh tones he used when dressing down soldiers in Shadow Company who had just failed in their training. Even so, given their situation, Garnet’s voice never rose above a subdued growl.

  “While you slept on a bed at night, whimpering in terror as your nightmares made you cry out for your mother, I stood on the wall and watched hundreds of men stand ashen-faced before the coming horde and saw them fall, torn to shreds by demonic hands. You had the luxury of time and the comfort of space around you. My men, meanwhile, fought a thousand-to-one odds and held firm with more courage, strength, and conviction than a hundred paladins of your caliber,” Garnet said with a sneer.

  “So from now on, when you speak of experience, I suggest you first wipe your chin to clean off the dried remains from that crap you just spouted. When you speak of leadership, I must insist you first let go of your mother’s teat before you think yourself qualified to comment on those who have proven themselves well beyond your feeble abilities.

  “And when you speak of the men in my command, I demand you speak of them with respect, brother, or I will, with all due adherence to propriety and Prismatic code, beat you to a bloody pulp and leave you quivering in a broken heap on the doorstep of the nearest temple praying to God for His forgiveness for your narrow-mindedness and ignorance. The Orange Facet is the reflection of knowledge and truth, and I find your bigotry in stark contrast to the virtues of our holy order. I suggest you reexamine your prejudices, brother, lest you find yourself fading from Orange to a more appropriate color.”

  Garnet paused, then smirked with a deliberate glance up and down the Orange paladin’s comparably skinny frame. “Pink, perhaps, would be more fitting.”

  Throughout this muffled diatribe, the Orange paladin stood pale-faced and trembling in the glare of Garnet’s apparent anger and disdain. His hands clenched as his lips twisted in resentment, and for a moment Garnet thought the other paladin would be foolish enough to take a swing at him. That would be nothing short of disastrous for the much smaller man, and the Orange apparently thought better of physically assaulting Garnet’s mountainous frame.

  Garnet spared the white-faced paladin only another moment of his attention, then he turned away with a swift motion that sent his red cloak whipping past the Orange’s face. The other paladin flinched away from the cloak, then turned and stalked away fuming.

  “Who was that pompous ass?” Garnet murmured calmly to his father.

  “Alister de’Kelenath,” Garet replied in a low voice heavy with suppressed amusement, “a real pain in the ass. I remember him from my training days. He used to give the two elves that trained with us a hard time, and it sizzled his stones when they made full paladin a month before he did.”

  Garnet chuckled.

  “That was eloquent,” Brican kythed to Garnet. “Are you sure we don’t need to exorcise Gerard’s ghost out of you?”

  “Not now, Brican,” Garnet replied. “Report.”

  “Red and yellow are ready to assault, sir,” Brican told him seriously. “Green is ready to move out on your order, and with the exception of your new friend over there, the paladins all appear ready to move with us.”

  “Good. Have someone send up a fake signal, and let’s get going then,” Garnet replied briskly.

  “Understood.”

  Garnet received a brief kythe when his two platoons first made contact with the demon sentries around the camp. In the distance, Garnet thought he heard a low roar of a demon in pain, but he couldn’t be sure. A moment later an arrow whizzed into sight and sank into the ground a dozen or so feet from Garnet.

  “There’s the signal,” he said loudly to the paladins loosely assembled about the clearing. “Garet, form up the jintaal and follow us in. On my signal, Green Platoon will break and let you through.”

  “Understood, sir,” Garet replied crisply, saluting his son.

  “Let’s give ‘em Hell, brothers,” Garnet cried and motioned everyone forward. “For God and for man.”

  “For life!” the paladins roared together.

  - 3 -

  The assault went almost exactly to plan. When Garnet and the other paladins arrived under cover of Shadow Company’s Green Platoon, the demons were pinned down and struggling to hold back the denarae. Most of the demons were weak enough that Shadow Company was able to destroy them without undue difficulty. Their weapons were all blessed and marked with the holy symbol – a hard-earned lesson from the war – but at least a dozen demons were slaked on human blood and had become too powerful to be destroyed by anything less than a full paladin. The holy warriors waded into the fray, cutting through unholy flesh and punching a hole through the remnants of the demons’ defenses.

  The paladins split up to engage their foes, following the tides of battle. A few minutes into the engagement, Garnet received word that a large pocket of the demons was trying to break away and flee the battle. Before he could even think of the order, Flasch was already in position to cut off the retreat. The Violet paladin slew the two more powerful demons while his platoon mopped up the lesser creatur
es.

  Garnet stayed out of most of the battle, preferring to direct his troop movements without suffering from the fog of war that descended on a commander who allowed himself to become personally engaged in combat.

  Twice during the battle, something flickered at the edge of Garnet’s vision, but he was never able to focus in on it. When he turned to look directly at it, nothing was there. Garnet shook his head, hoping it was only the lingering effects of using the shared vision and not something more sinister.

  Across the battlefield, Garnet saw a blaze of azure fury and knew that Danner had defied his orders and asolved[7] his wings. The blue wings were a gift from his immortal heritage, but lately, Garnet had come to regard them as much a curse as a blessing. Anger that Danner had disobeyed him overrode any thoughts he may have had that perhaps Danner had a valid reason for utilizing his immortal power.

  “Danner!” he bellowed, striding toward his friend. The angelic figure cut down a screaming demon, then turned toward Garnet and regarded him with glowing blue eyes. Danner was at best average in height, but when his wings were asolved he emanated a power that made such considerations as physical size meaningless. His short-cropped, dark hair was plastered to his head with sweat and blood, and his youthful face was set in a fierce exuberance that faded as he saw Garnet approaching.

  When he was close enough that no one would overhear the quiet roar of his voice, Garnet growled, “By Sin, San, Satan, and God Himself, I specifically ordered you not to use your wings. Just what part of ‘No’ didn’t you understand? You will learn to control you impulses or, by God, you will no longer lead in this unit. Do you understand me?”

  “Damn it, Garnet, I…”

  Garnet held up a hand to cut Danner off as he received a kythe from Brican that nearly stopped his heart.

  “Garnet, you’d better get over here,” Brican kythed, his mental voice tired. “We’ve got four paladins down, and one of them’s your father.”

  Distantly, Garnet recognized the sound of voices being raised to pass him a message. Danner’s wings flickered, then disappeared. A Yellow paladin ran toward Garnet. Even knowing the message that was needlessly being delivered, Garnet’s chest froze into a solid lump of ice, and for a moment he fought just to breathe. He saw the paladin’s lips moving, but it was an eternal second before Garnet could hear anything over the pounding in his ears.

  “Man down, Garnet. Man down.”

  Chapter 2

  The body obeys the mind like the most obedient of dogs. The mind obeys itself like the most fractious of felines.

  - Knerry Raltin,

  “Forms of Communication” (102 AL)

  - 1 -

  Danner followed Brican’s mental directions and met up with Garnet and the other Shadow Company officers a few seconds before they came upon the wounded paladins. Danner reverted to his wholly mortal body and carefully avoided meeting Garnet’s eyes; he didn’t want to see his friend’s anger, nor did he want his own irritation to bubble to the surface. Instead, the five paladins and two denarae glanced at each other to assess injuries, then immediately turned their attention to the four men laying on the ground.

  Of the four men, it was obvious three were dead. One of the paladins, from the Blue Facet, had been practically shucked out of his torn armor during the fight, and one of his arms was missing. A Violet paladin was missing most of one side of his face, and a Red had a gaping hole in his chest where his heart should have been. The fourth fallen paladin was Garnet’s father, and Danner nearly gasped in relief when he saw the massive Red paladin’s chest rise.

  Garet was covered with deep cuts and claw marks, and very little of his body was not covered with his own blood. His customary chainmail armor had been removed, presumably by the Green paladin already in attendance, and Danner could see gaping holes where demonic claws had torn through the interwoven links, corresponding to the injuries covering the Red paladin’s torso. Worst of all, Garet’s right hand had nearly been severed from his wrist, and a tourniquet further up his arm was the only thing preventing a fatal loss of blood. The Green paladin was pale-faced as he held the partially severed limb, and it was obvious from his face that he knew he wouldn’t be able to heal the grievous wounds Garet had sustained.

  Garnet stared down at his prone father, his face a mask of inscrutability that told Danner more than anything just how deeply his friend was shaken by his father’s injuries. Garnet took in the sight of the despairing Green paladin and immediately shifted his eyes to Danner.

  “Dan…” he choked off, his voice parched. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Danner. Please. Please try.”

  With a nod, Danner moved closer and knelt down next to the blood-drenched paladin. All question of Danner’s prior use of his immortal heritage vanished; whatever irritation both men felt toward each other was washed away by necessity and sympathetic concern.

  Danner was, at best, inconsistent when it came to healing. He either met with stunning success or abysmal failure. It had been remarked that he should only take on the terminally injured, because he would either heal them completely or kill them outright, leaving them no worse off than they otherwise would have been. The best healers in the Prism might have been able to save his life, though not his hand, but none of the paladins present had anywhere near that sort of strength. Having seen Garet’s torn body and felt the pain within him, Danner knew there was no other hope for the Red paladin. If he failed, Garnet’s father would die.

  No, I will NOT fail! I will not let him down again! he thought, gritting his teeth in determination. Danner forced himself to relax and out of the corners of his eyes, he saw translucent blue feathers flicker back into existence.

  A feeling of peace and holy power flooded through Danner’s body, and he closed his eyes and allowed himself the briefest of moments to let the sensation soak into him. A cleansing fire coursed through his veins, burning away his fears and irritations and replacing them with serenity and strength as he focused on his intentions. When he opened his eyes, Danner was somehow unsurprised to see a faint blue nimbus surrounding his hands and forearms.

  Ignoring the murmurs behind him, Danner leaned over Garet and laid his softly glowing hands on the Red paladin’s chest. Immediately, he felt the pain and agony contained in Garet’s broken, human body, and Danner hissed involuntarily as he shared some of the pain himself. His lips parted as he silently whispered a healing prayer, reaching inside of himself and touching the immortal power, his āyus,[8] hoping that font of holy strength would aid his healing.

  He continued to pray, probing Garet’s body with his healing power and willing it to repair the damage, visualizing what needed to happen. For a few agonized moments, nothing changed, and Danner despaired. Then, slowly at first, bones began to shift and realign themselves where they had snapped or been torn apart. Muscles stretched and repaired themselves, as strong and powerful as they had ever been. Flesh grew over wounds as they healed themselves, sealing the once-deadly injuries and leaving nothing more than broad pink scars as evidence.

  Finally, Danner turned his attention to the injured hand. As he lifted Garet’s limb, the blue nimbus surrounding his hand stretched out and enveloped the bloody stump and the hand still hanging on by a few shreds of torn sinew and bone. Danner grasped the two severed parts in his hands and held them together.

  A river of blue energy poured into the bloody juxtaposition, flared briefly, then was gone. When Danner let go of the hand, Garet’s arm fell limply across his chest, bloody but whole once more. A thick trail of pink, hairless skin jaggedly encircled Garet’s wrist where the two pieces had been rejoined.

  Danner stumbled to his feet and his wings flickered briefly and then dekinted out of sight. He took one staggering step, then fell forward and collapsed into Garnet’s hastily extended arms. Fighting against a weariness as deep as his soul, Danner looked up and saw tears in Garnet’s eyes as he looked first at his father, then down at Danner.

  “Thank you, my friend,” G
arnet whispered. “Thank you.”

  - 2 -

  Later that afternoon, Michael watched over Danner as their friend slept fitfully. Danner’s face was tightened up in concern, or perhaps even fear, and he occasionally thrashed around in his blankets. Twice he nearly rolled out of the cot they’d placed him in, so on Marc’s suggestion, they’d wrapped a pair of rolled blankets around Danner and the cot and tied them off, holding him gently, but securely, in place.

  Now, watching the evident distress on Danner’s young-looking face, Michael worried about what could so trouble his dreams.

  “Kinda makes you wonder what’s going on in there, doesn’t it?”

  Michael turned and nodded as Flasch walked up and seated himself on a nearby rock. The fair-haired Violet paladin was smaller than most men, while Michael towered over just about everybody, even Garnet. Flasch had once quipped that if they looked more like each other, they could do a stage act of an Incredible Shrinking Man.

  “I wouldn’t be worried if it was just today,” Michael said, keeping his voice low. “He twitches and moans every night. Ever since the war ended, it seems. I asked Alicia. Being who and what he is…” Michael trailed off.

  “You’re worried, and with good cause, probably,” another voice said, and now Marc approached them. His olive-hued skin was harder to see in the dim light, and pretty much everything about his body was brown, from his hair to his toes. He was more heavily muscled than he’d been when they’d first started training so many months ago. They all were. Stronger, better, more deadly. Wearier, sadder, more scarred.

  Was it only last spring? Michael wondered silently. It feels like years.

  “Did someone call a meeting here and not tell me?” Michael asked lightly, laying his thoughts aside.