“You know of what I speak, Birch,” Kaelus said, turning to the Gray paladin. Birch stared at Kaelus with wide eyes, his face an unreadable mask. “You had a small glimpse of it when you died, a vision I shared to some extent because of my bond with you. You’ve touched it, but because of who and what you are, you thought it was God. You saw the existence to which all life is destined to return, and even this glimmer of time that encompasses all of creation from the first spark to the final whimper, even that is infinitely less than a mote in the eye of its eternal nature. It is timeless, formless, and yet utterly existent.”
A commotion outside the tent caused Kaelus to break off, and it was as if a spell had suddenly been broken. Perklet released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and he saw Birch draw a deep, shuddering breath as he stood transfixed, staring at Kaelus in awe.
“Siran, what’s the disturbance?” Kaelus called.
The elven commander spoke a moment longer to someone outside the tent, then he threw back the flap and leaned inside.
“Scouts report a large force of demons moving on our position,” the elf reported grimly. “Tens of thousands.”
“From where?” Kaelus demanded. “Are they certain we’re the target?”
“They approach from all directions, primarily from the skies,” Siran answered, “and there is no doubt.”
“I’ll get word to Uriel immediately,” Kaelus said, and he shut his eyes as he concentrated on contacting the Archangel commander.
Siran looked grimly at Birch and Perklet. “They circle us as a noose and will be here soon. We are trapped.”
- 3 -
Mikal waited with all the patience he could muster, staring through a world of soothing blue liquid while his thoughts focused on the struggle going on above him. Hundreds of angels waited alongside a few thousand dwarves and gnomes, all of them gleaned from the ranks of the blessed dead. This was nearly every dead dwarf and gnome they could find in all of Heaven, and for the first time Mikal wondered why there were so few.
Either the ranks of Hell were swelled with the souls of dwarves and gnomes deemed unworthy of Heaven, or else there was some other explanation that defied Mikal’s attempts at reason. In fact, now that his attention was drawn to it, Mikal realized there were also very few elves among the ranks of the blessed dead. To be sure, humans were the most populous of the mortal species, but the proportions of humans amongst the souls in Heaven were staggering. Even the denarae were overwhelmingly represented in Heaven compared to the other demi-human races.
Before Mikal could proceed any further on this line of curiosity, Uriel contacted him and warned him to be ready.
“Any minute now, they’ll be in place, and you can pull the support,” Uriel kythed. “Then they’re all yours. We’ve got another problem, though. Kaelus is surrounded by another force of demons. It looks like they’ve seen through our ruse.”
“Have they seen through this trap though?” Mikal asked, putting aside his concern and frustration to focus on the needs of the moment. Time enough to worry when his task here was finished.
“It doesn’t look like it,” Uriel replied. “I haven’t seen their commander yet, so I can’t tell you who we should be trying to anticipate.”
“How is Shadow Company coming with that flying behemoth up there?” Mikal kythed.
“Not very well, I think,” the other Seraph replied. “Some of them have actually landed on the thing, but I don’t see where they’re doing any good. It’s lost a few of those accursed tentacles, but it’s just too damn big and too well protected.”
Both angels fell silent then.
“Get ready,” Uriel kythed. Mikal tensed. “Get ready. Now!”
“NOW!” Mikal echoed the command as he ordered the men around him. Angels heaved on massive support columns while gnomes and dwarves hammered away at pre-set pins that held together an enormous network of interdependent sections. The ceiling fifty feet above them groaned in protest, and everyone scattered to take their places in side caverns.
Mikal could have accomplished the same thing by willing the surface above them to change, but it would have been a significant exertion on his part given the scale of their trap, and he needed his energy for the fight to come. Instead, they relied on mortal ingenuity and engineering to destroy their enemies.
In one massive rush, the ground above them caved in and an army of tens of thousands spilled down into the cavern, which was flooded with the waters of the Philion. Damned souls squirmed and screeched in protest, but the Heavenly waters quickly sapped their strength and left them limp and helpless on the bottom of the lake. The demons who fell in writhed in agony as the river water began to break down their very āyus, and they were easy prey for the angels who lay in wait beneath the churning waters.
“Attack!” Mikal ordered. He surged forward, wings spread to propel him through the water as he charged into the fray. He carried his sword in his right hand and a powerful war spear in his left and attacked demons on both sides as he swam gracefully through the churning waters. A few demons lashed out mindlessly as they saw an angel nearby, but only a few actually connected with Mikal, and these recoiled in agony as they encountered the strength of his āyus.
The Seraph left a wake of destruction as he sped through the lake, and when he turned to look behind him, he noted with satisfaction that demons were now starting to die on their own as the waters of the Philion slowly crushed them.
Mikal surfaced briefly and quickly scanned the area. He noted with some disappointment that a sizeable force of demons had escaped the clutches of the lake. Some had simply been beyond the range of the trap, while others had escaped into the air at the last second and avoided the watery death that awaited their slower fellows. As Mikal watched, a balrog that was too close to the edge of the lake teetered over the waters, then suddenly sprouted wings and soared to safety.
Mikal drew his bow and pierced the demon through one wing with a bolt of power, and the balrog spun out of control and landed in the lake. He was dead a moment later as an angel swam by and hacked him to pieces.
“Mikal, do you see Camael?” Uriel suddenly asked him.
“He’s not down here. Did he fall?” he asked sympathetically. Mikal knew his friend was very fond of his second-in-command, whom everyone acknowledged as a powerful angel in his own right and a boon to Uriel’s command, in spite of his utter lack of humor.
“I don’t think so. I didn’t feel his destruction, but I can’t get in touch with him,” Uriel kythed in frustration. “Either he’s gone and I missed it, or else he can’t or won’t hear me for some reason.”
“Worry about him later,” Mikal said firmly. Uriel had a tendency toward emotionality at times. “Camael can take care of himself, whatever mess he’s gotten into. How’s that behemoth coming?”
“They’ve got it turning somehow, and it looks like it’s fleeing,” Uriel kythed with evident surprise. “I don’t know how they did it, but I’m impressed.”
Mikal glanced around and was on the verge of asking Uriel about forcing more of the demons into the water, when the Archangel commander hissed in anger.
“Aesthma,” Uriel shouted, and Mikal even heard the Seraph’s booming voice, wherever he was. Mikal grimaced. If Aesthma was here, there would be no talking to Uriel until the demon was either dead or had fled. Uriel’s hatred of the demon ran deep, no less so than Mikal’s, but more intense. In some ways Aesthma represented the opposite of everything Uriel held dear, and the two had been bitter enemies even before the outbreak of the Great Schism.
Of course, Aesthma’s hand in Gabriel’s death had cemented Uriel’s loathing, ensuring that their mutual hatred would one day lead to a confrontation such as this. Rather than chide his friend for what might be considered single-minded rashness, Mikal touched his mind and kythed, “Destroy him, Uriel. End this feud and bring Gabriel the justice he deserves.”
Uriel’s battle cry echoed across the battlefield as he closed with the demon lord.
Chapter 31
What truly matters is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.
- Trames,
“O Musings” (976 AM)
- 1 -
Uriel hurtled through the skies set on a collision course with the insect demon lord, who likewise charged forward recklessly. He passed angels and demons alike in a blur of motion, ignoring everything but his target. Uriel raised his bow and fired a half dozen arrows. Three struck demons who were in his path and knocked them clear, the others forced Aesthma to twist awkwardly in the air to avoid being struck.
He dropped his bow without a second thought, then Uriel drew the Sword of Light. Blue flames danced down the length of the crystal blade and licked at his hand with a comforting warmth. He knew Aesthma was here solely for this confrontation, and he would gladly grant the demon’s wish.
“Let this be the end of it, Aesthma,” Uriel spoke directly to the demon as they drew closer to each other. “No retreat, no mercy.”
“You shall have neither, Uriel,” the demon replied.
A second before they struck, Uriel feinted to his right. Aesthma shifted to compensate, and Uriel moved left, causing the demon to react again. At the last possible instant, Uriel spun onto his back and dropped below Aesthma, who veered to the right. Uriel’s sword cut through the air and barely missed the demon’s tail, which was little more than a blur in the air.
Uriel whipped around in a tight turn and struck again, but Aesthma was ready for him. Claws and tail streaked forward, forcing him to duck to avoid the demon’s deadly stinger. Two daggers appeared in the demon’s human-like hands, and Uriel had more weapons to avoid as he tried to open a hole in the demon’s defenses.
More is it? Uriel thought, and suddenly he had four arms. Each limb of the upper pair wielded a long sword – although only the blade in his right hand burned with holy fire – while the lower pair wielded crystalline daggers. The newly created weapons would not be as effective as the sword crafted by Dem at the Heavenly Forge, at least not against a demon of Aesthma’s power, but they would serve.[29]
For long moments, neither was able to gain an advantage over the other. In terms of power and strength, the two were almost perfectly matched, and both were masters of combat. Uriel moved with a speed beyond any mortal, but Aesthma’s reflexes were just as quick, and he had yet one more weapon than Uriel – his tail and stinger.
The two immortals clashed in the sky above the newly created lake, and no one dared interrupt their duel. Angels and demons alike accorded them a wide berth, lest they be caught up in the struggle and obliterated.
Aesthma darted to the right and upward, forcing Uriel to adjust to match him. For an instant too long, he watched the demon’s body and ignored his tail, which shot forward and clouted Uriel across the shoulder. Uriel was knocked down and twisted to avoid a second strike, lashing out blindly with his flaming sword as he reoriented himself. He felt a burning in his arm and realized Aesthma had scored a long scratch with the tip of his stinger.
The demon lord sped down at him from above and threw a dagger, which Uriel knocked aside with his off-handed sword. Reeling from the poisonous taint in his arm, Uriel turned and sped quickly away while he tried to concentrate on neutralizing the demon’s venom.
“No retreat, Uriel!” Aesthma raged close behind him. “No mercy!”
Uriel turned without losing his momentum and parried a series of lightning tail attacks, all the while pumping his wings to keep him out of reach of the demon’s claws. Disoriented and distracted as he was, closing with the demon now would be the end of him. Aesthma pursued him relentlessly, giving Uriel no chance to stop the infection spreading from his shoulder.
Finally, the demon over-reached one strike, and Uriel scored a deep cut on his opponent’s tail. Aesthma recoiled and hissed in pain. The few seconds this gave Uriel were enough that he halted the spread of the venom, but Aesthma recovered before he could fully heal the wound.
It was enough, though, and Uriel rejoined the battle with renewed strength and determination.
- 2 -
Garet watched as his son led a charge against a group of demons who were using the behemoth as a flying citadel from which they could attack with impunity. Demons and damned souls rained down arrows marked with the unholy symbol, while a platoon of childris stood guard to ensure no one landed on the behemoth to attack. This was, of course, exactly what Shadow Company had done, escorted by the dakkan-mounted paladins under Garet’s command.
“They don’t stand a chance against childris,” Garet worried. He considered signaling a squad of paladins to go help, but even if they managed to get through the writhing tentacles once more, he didn’t think there was much they could do. Shadow Company denarae were among the best-trained warriors alive, and if they couldn’t handle the childris then a squad of paladins would mean little.
Garet’s yellow dakkan was critically wounded and was only just able to remain airborne. Two of the behemoth’s tentacles had struck Shelly while depositing Shadow Company, tearing a chunk out of one flank and ripping a dangerous hole in one of her wings. The trustworthy dakkan fought through obvious pain to keep her paladin aloft. Garet’s healing powers were practically nonexistent, leaving him unable to alleviate Shelly’s growing pain.
The denarae had now succeeded in overrunning the positions not defended by childris, and somehow they’d even managed to turn the behemoth around into what looked like a slow retreat. The hulking monstrosity had already crossed most of the battlefield by that time, however, and now it was ponderously making its way back the direction it had come. They were almost directly over the lake now, and there was still a lot of ground to cover. Garet knew his son would never leave the beast until it was either destroyed or no longer a threat to the battle, and so Shadow Company remained on the back of the behemoth.
One rank of childris demons charged forward while a second hung back and threw their black spears over the heads of their fellows. The spears fell among the denarae, but Garet was too far away to clearly gauge the impact of the attack. The denarae responded with a volley of arrows, then two platoons charged forward to meet the childris head-on.
Moments before they reached the demons, the denarae behind them fired another volley of arrows, and the men in front suddenly dropped to the ground, allowing the arrows to speed by overhead at a dangerously lethal range. Garet watched in fascination and frustration as the battle raged, knowing there was nothing he could do to help his son.
Finally, Shelly’s subdued whimpers were too much, and he realized he had to land or risk his mount’s life. They began to glide slowly downward, keeping a careful eye out for demons who might take notice of the crippled dakkan and seek to finish them both off.
A roar of fury beneath him caused Garet to look below, and he watched with a sense of awe as Uriel and Aesthma chased each other across the sky. They were both badly injured, but the two immortals fought on with a loathing that spanned eons, and neither was willing to concede defeat to their hated foe nor settle for another stalemate. This was a battle to the death.
As Garet watched, Uriel attacked first with one sword, then the other, then with his daggers as he closed with the demon. He cut off one of Aesthma’s pincer claws, but the demon reacted with blinding speed and struck Uriel a deep blow with his tail, digging his stinger into the Seraph’s back with a piercing shriek of glee.
Uriel pushed away from the demon and fell in a barely controlled descent. With a howl of triumph, Aesthma rolled once in the air, then sped after the falling angel.
Garet’s frustration and helplessness evaporated, and in a moment of clarity and resolve he leapt from his dakkan and plummeted through the skies. Using only the barest bit of control from his cloak, he guided himself unerringly toward the unsuspecting demon who closed on Uriel with single-minded intensity. Somewhere above him, Shelly let out a keening cry.
Without warning, Garet struck the demo
n and wrapped his massive arms around the monster’s shell, pinning his wings to his back. Aesthma cried out in surprise, then turned his head and rattled his mandibles in irritation. Garet saw a blur of motion out the corner of his eye, then fire erupted in his leg as Aesthma’s stinger ripped across his right calf, cutting through Garet’s armor like it was paper and laying the flesh open to the bone.
Aesthma struck again and again, puncturing holes in Garet’s armor and striking the flesh within with lethal poison. Garet screamed in pain but refused to release his hold on the demon. The waters of the lake rushed closer and closer, and Aesthma’s attacks began to take on the frenzy of panic. He clawed at Garet’s interlocked hands, but the angle was too awkward for his limbs, and no matter his immortal strength, he couldn’t get leverage enough to break the mighty paladin’s hold.
The demon’s wings stirred frantically against Garet’s chest, sending a vibration through his body that threatened to rattle his teeth loose.
Aesthma’s final scream was choked off as they struck the surface of the lake with a crack that would have deafened Garet had he still been aware enough to sense anything. Pain and poison had overridden every feeling and sensation from his body, and for a time he knew the true definition of agony as the demon’s venom raced through his flesh and stabbed into his heart. Then the blessed waters of the Philion closed over him, and cool relief flooded the Red paladin’s body in his final moment.
By the time Mikal swept through and dealt the fatal blow to Aesthma, Garet was already dead.
Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) Page 43