Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3)

by Brian J Moses

  Kala shook her head and smiled slightly at Trames’s strangeness.

  “As to what I’m doing,” the balding man went on, “I guess you could say I’m trying to pick myself up off this blanket.”

  When Kala didn’t respond, Trames laughed and finally opened his eyes.

  “Sorry, my dear, I know that sounds strange,” he said. “It’s a little joke from my younger days. When I was still little more than a boy, I came across an old man under a tree sitting much like this. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was seeking enlightenment.” Trames shook his head. “Fool that I was, I asked how he would make himself lighter, and if he would float if he did.”

  Kala laughed with him then.

  “So is that what you’re doing, then?” she asked. “Seeking enlightenment?”

  “Always,” Trames replied, “except I don’t need a tree to do it.”

  “So if you find this enlightenment, will it make you smarter?”

  “No, my dear. Intelligent people know who others are. An enlightened man knows himself. Power conquers others, but it takes true strength to conquer yourself.”

  Once more, Kala shook her head. “Sometimes I just don’t get you, Trames,” she said with a sigh. “You say some of the most insightful things I’ve ever heard, and then you turn around and capture invisible creatures in empty honey pots and spout nonsense rhymes with equal delight and sincerity.”

  Trames smiled sadly at her.

  “The people of our home believe me to be mad, and as they look at it, I suppose perhaps I am,” Trames said. “That is why you were assigned as my ganashir. I didn’t accept you as ganashir for my own benefit, though, rather for your own.” He looked at her with such an expression of warmth and fatherly love that Kala’s hand trembled as she held back the tent flap. “You have such wonder and beauty about you, my dear, I weep when you cannot see it. You are so open, and yet so deaf and blind.

  I still await the day when you will allow yourself to have what you want and to be happy.”

  Kala felt her eyes burning, and she wiped her fingers across her eyes and flicked away the wetness.

  “If you would, please, leave me now, Kala,” Trames said softly as he closed his eyes again. “Further talk would only throw pebbles into a pond that’s slowly settling.”

  Silently, Kala nodded and allowed the tent flap to close.

  “Rest well, Kala,” Trames said from within.

  Not trusting her voice, Kala ran a hand down the tent canvas. Somehow, she knew Trames would understand the gesture and unvoiced sentiment.

  Her emotions still unsettled by the brief encounter, Kala did not, at first, notice the men who passed by her. Finally, she was jerked out of her reverie when a denarae kythe spoke into her mind.

  “Are you looking for someone?” the voice asked, and she looked up and saw Trebor Dok standing nearby looking at her with polite concern.

  “I’m fine,” she replied, belatedly realizing that’s not what he’d asked. “Are.. are you all coming back so soon?”

  “Our parlay is over,” Trebor said grimly. “We’ll be packing to leave within the hour, and the rear guard will stay until everyone else is away. It shouldn’t take too long, since we got most of the garrison to safety already.”

  Kala stumbled over her thoughts, trying to order her mind and make sense of the turmoil.

  “I think Garnet was looking for you,” Trebor suggested. “He’s back that way about fifty yards.”

  “Thank you,” Kala replied, and she waved to Trebor as she started off the way he’d come.

  Kala found Garnet sitting on a raised bump of heavenly ground and staring at a chunk of crystal the size of his fist. Garnet held the rock in one thick hand and tilted it ever so slightly to examine the play of light on the crystalline facets.

  “It has six facets,” Garnet said as she approached him from behind. “Six facets on each side, then six on top that meet at a point, and six on bottom that do the same. It looks so perfectly cut, but I broke it off the top of a short pillar of crystal a few minutes ago.” Garnet looked up from the crystal and stared off into the distance. “It’s like this whole place, it’s so perfect it’s unnatural.”

  Kala walked closer behind him and laid a hand on either shoulder and felt the tenseness contained in his body. Without asking, she worked the massive muscles of his shoulders between her fingers, massaging away the muscle tension, even though she knew she could do little about its inner source.

  While she worked, they watched silently as Birch walked quickly past. He stopped a few feet away and slowly clenched his fists. Kala thought she saw a flicker of…something, between his fingers, but she couldn’t be sure. Flames?

  “Here, Birch,” Garnet said, and lobbed the Gray paladin the crystal he’d been holding. Birch caught the stone and shattered it with one clench of his fist. A large chunk fell to the ground, an exact miniature of the larger stone – six facets each on the sides, top, and bottom. Birch picked up that stone and stared at it, then he walked away, stone in-hand.

  “I take it the parlay didn’t go well,” Kala said with forced lightness.

  Garnet laughed bitterly.

  “He was taunting us just by his presence,” he replied. “We dug a few jabs at him like schoolyard children, but the whole time he was laughing at us. He only came for parlay because he was curious, of all things. He could have sent in his forces right then and crushed us all. I think he’s amused at the thought of us struggling against him and watching in vain as our armies crumble against the horde he’s brought here. After seeing that army up close, I can’t say as he’s wrong, either. What we saw at the Barrier in Lokka was only a fraction of the army he’s got now.”

  Kala had never heard such despair in Garnet’s voice. Without thinking, she used one hand and gently guided his head back to rest against her abdomen. Garnet leaned back far enough that he could just barely look up and see her face. Their eyes met, and Kala smiled down at him with what she hoped was a reassuring expression.

  “How are things here?” Garnet asked. “How’s Trames?”

  “Trying to levitate,” Kala said and laughed at the bewildered look on Garnet’s face. “I’ll tell you some other time.”

  Garnet slowly closed his eyes as he relaxed under her ministrations.

  “I like that,” he said softly. “Some other time. It implies there’ll be a future for us to enjoy and spend time talking about anything and everything under the sun. It means we’ll be alive. It’s hopeful.”

  An unnaturally loud voice boomed out across the encampment, startling them both.

  “Garnet! Garnet!” Mikal’s voice boomed.

  Garnet practically leapt to his feet and pulled Kala off balance. She stumbled and fell against him just as he turned and caught her with one arm. Kala looked up and met his eyes, and for a moment, she was extremely aware of just how close his lips were to hers. Just a slight tilt of his head and a few inches…

  “Garnet!”

  Garnet turned away and took his arm from around her. He took two steps, then stopped and looked back. Kala hadn’t moved. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then blushed and turned away.

  “Coming,” he bellowed and trotted away.

  For the first time, Kala thought she might understand what Trames meant when he said to allow herself to have what she wanted.

  “And to be happy,” she whispered, staring after Garnet’s now-vanished figure.

  Chapter 24

  Mortals have a unique trait: they know they will die, but they do not when it will happen. A day, a year, a decade, a century even – it is as inevitable as it is unknowable. Thus, they can treat every moment as a gift and every experience as limitless.

  - Uriel

  “Collected Accounts from the Pandemonium War”

  - 1 -

  Brad woke to the sound of shouting and the clash of arms. He rushed out of his tent and saw a wave of monsters charging through the gap where the garrison had been statio
ned. They poured through the narrow defile like a dark stain that spread over the pristine, cloudlike earth of Heaven. The advance wave had just reached a line of paladins and elves who had hastily scrambled to meet the surprise attack.

  My first fight! Brad thought in excitement. He rushed forward and made it three steps before he realized he was wearing neither sword nor armor. He skidded to a halt and sped back to the tent he shared with Anolla. She was dressing herself in a thick jerkin of hardened leather, and Brad noted sourly that her sword was already girded at her side.

  “Are we under attack?” she asked. Her face was flushed with excitement, for all that she was trying to maintain a serious demeanor.

  “Damned souls, it looks like,” Brad said, trying to sound warrior-like and knowledgeable. “They didn’t look big enough to be full demons.”

  Anolla nodded and wordlessly helped him put his armor on over the padded tunic he already wore. Brad’s armor was similar to his sister’s, but his had round, steel plates beneath the outermost layer of leather, and each had a small spike that poked through to the outside.

  Brother and sister both wielded short swords and wooden shields. The shields had an oak field and a studded steel rim, with a fist-sized steel umbo set in the center of the shield. Brad slipped his hand through the strap and grasped the leather-wrapped grip in the center. Anolla’s shield was identical, except she preferred her hand strap farther forward, so the shield covered her entire forearm.

  “Just think, someday, once I’m a paladin, I’ll be trained to use one of their special kite shields,” Brad said excitedly as he shifted about to settle his armor.

  “We have to make it home first, brother,” Anolla chided him. “Ready?”

  “Let’s go.”

  The twins stepped from their tent and saw the battle was fully joined. No more demon-like creatures poured from the gap, and a sizeable portion of those who had clashed with the forces of Heaven were now twice-dead corpses strewn about the ground. The bodies slowly faded into clouds of blackened dust that vanished seconds later, leaving no trace behind.

  Brad saw their father and brother trotting quickly alongside Gerard Morningham, and they hurried to catch up. They followed in the wake of the trio, listening to them.

  “From any other army, I’d call it a full out attack,” Garnet was saying, “but with this force…” he trailed off, shaking his head.

  “This is little more than a sortie,” Garet finished when his son trailed off. “It’s a good thing you foresaw this and had forces ready to respond.”

  “Malith is just trying to irritate us,” Gerard growled. “He knows we were pulling back, and he sent them just to give us the message that he could have brought everything through and crushed us. He thinks he’s playing with us, but he’s just showing his hand.”

  “How so?” Garet asked.

  “He’s showing us what he thinks of us, dad,” Garnet answered, “and how he’s going to structure his war. He has so much contempt for an army the size of ours, and he’s so sure of his victory, he’ll play us out as long as it’s amusing to him.”

  Gerard nodded in agreement.

  “He’ll loom over us, he’ll pick off chunks wherever he can, and he’ll waste huge amounts of forces just to unsettle us,” Gerard said, “and honestly, he can afford to. I estimate he sent about two thousand of those beasties at us, and it’s no more than a drop in the bucket for him. Malith has nothing even resembling finesse in warfare, but he makes up for it with brute strength and sheer numerical advantage.”

  Brad and Anolla followed closely and stayed quiet, but the trio abruptly stopped outside a large tent and the twins were caught in plain sight when their father turned around to speak face-to-face with Gerard. Garet stared at his children in consternation, then he glowered at them and rested a hand on the hilt of his sword.

  “And what, pray tell, do you two think you’re doing?” he growled. Garnet and Gerard turned to look at them.

  “Well, we were just following you, because, well, we figured, um…” Brad stammered.

  “We thought,” Anolla took over, “you might be headed toward the fighting, and we wanted to… um… help,” she said weakly, faltering under her father’s dark scowl.

  “You wanted,” Garet said slowly, anger burning beneath his flat words, “to help. Help? You two don’t know the first thing about helping in a situation like this. This is not a game, and I’m ashamed to think you two would possibly endanger yourselves by rushing out to fight. What would I tell your mother if something happened to you?”

  Brad felt his cheeks burning and he stared at the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anolla doing the same.

  A man dressed in simple peasants’ clothes hurried up and bowed subserviently to the three Red paladins.

  “Milords, they asked me to tell you that it’s just about over now,” he said. His accent identified him as coming from somewhere in the southern lands of Lokka, probably from Merishank. “There’s just a few pockets of monsters to clean up.”

  “Thank you,” Gerard said, saluting. “Go find the angels Mikal and Uriel and ask them to please meet me in the command tent.”

  “Yes, milord,” the peasant said, then hurried off.

  “Even the blessed dead who can’t fight can still help, at least until we get them trained,” Gerard muttered. “I think we might be better off giving that one a pitchfork instead of a sword. At least he’ll feel more comfortable with it in his hands.”

  Gerard looked at the other two paladins.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered, but Garet didn’t move. Gerard looked back irritably, but Garnet cleared his throat and motioned with his head to his two siblings.

  “Oh, them,” Gerard said. “Well, pull their pants down and spank them with the flat of your blade. If they insist of acting like children, treat them like children. Just do it quickly and meet me at the command tent when you’re done.”

  Garet glared at his children a moment longer, then he shook his head in disappointment.

  “We’ll discuss this later,” he said in a weary voice. Something in his tired tone wrenched at Brad’s heart, and fresh, hot tears burned their way down his face as he refused to look up at his father. “For now, I want you to go back to your tent, change out of that armor, and wait for me to come back. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” they answered in unison.

  “Good.” Garet turned to leave, but Garnet held back.

  “Go ahead, dad, I want to talk to the terrible two here for a second,” Garnet said, using one of the twins’ old nicknames.

  “Well, hurry up or there’ll be Hell to pay with Gerard,” Garet said, then he left.

  Brad looked up at his elder brother miserably, his eyes stinging as he wiped away still more tears. Garnet looked at his brother and smiled in understanding.

  “I know just how you feel,” Garnet said. “It hurts, feeling like you’ve let father down – disappointed him.” Brad nodded.

  “It’s not fair,” Anolla said, stamping her foot. Her eyes were nearly as tear-laden as her twin’s, but she looked more angry than hurt. “We’re not children anymore, and we know how to fight. Why can’t we help somehow?”

  “There’s more to warfare than knowing how to fight,” Garnet said sharply. “There’s knowing how to fight with others, as part of a team. If you two were to charge in the middle of a line of battle, you’d disrupt the entire defense and endanger not only yourselves, but everyone around you. Dad knows you can fight, he taught you most everything you know, just like he did me, but if you really want to help out, you’re going to have to work hard and earn it.”

  “We do want to help,” Brad said, drawing himself up straight. “We’re children of Garet jo’Meerkit, and we want to do our part.”

  Garnet laughed and clapped them both on the shoulder.

  “That’s my brother and sister,” he said. “Now, I’ll tell you what. I happen to know that we’re going to be preparing a force to work with
all the untrained among the blessed dead. Over the last few centuries, there have been a lot of honest farmers and penniless wastrels who’ve nevertheless been good men, but they don’t know a damn thing about wielding real weapons or fighting in a war. We need their numbers, so we’re going to train them up as quickly and as best we can.

  “When we set them up to train, I’ll tell dad I’m sending you two off with them,” Garnet said, and he saw their eyes gleam. “It won’t be much fun, and you’ll be have to sit through days and probably weeks of stuff you already know, but you’ll learn a lot, and by the time you’re finished, maybe you’ll be ready to take a more active role in things. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re the best brother in the world,” Anolla said, smiling brilliantly at him.

  “It’ll also get you away from Flasch,” Garnet said with a mock scowl. “Don’t think I haven’t seen the two of you sitting together all the time.”

  “Nothing’s happened,” Anolla said quickly, and Brad thought he heard a note of disappointment in her voice. Or he could just be imagining it; he knew how silly his sister was over the Violet paladin and how worried she was that he didn’t think of her as anything more than his friend’s baby sister. Was she blind?

  “Just see that it stays that way, at least for now,” Garnet said seriously. “I don’t want him getting distracted by a pretty face,” he said, knuckling Anolla’s chin, “and I’m certain dad would be upset if he found something going on. We don’t want that, now do we?”

  The twins shook their heads, and Anolla mumbled something that sounded like agreement.

  Garnet turned his attention to his brother.

  “So how about you?” he asked. “Think you can put up with this training camp?”

  “I’ll do it,” Brad said, looking his brother in the eyes. “We’ll prove to you and dad that we can be a part of things. We’ll show you both we’re ready and worthy.”

  Garnet nodded seriously and reached his massive arms out to embrace both of them.