- 3 -
The two paladins faced the demon with a grim knowledge in their eyes.
“We go to face them,” Kaelus announced. Flames crackled in his voice, and the demon clenched his fist in anger. “I will not cower here and wait for destruction. We must hold out as long as possible to give aid a chance to arrive.”
“Agreed,” Birch said. Perklet nodded. “We ride out to meet them and either punch through or hold until help arrives.”
“Then gird yourselves for war,” Kaelus said, then he left the tent with Siran.
Birch whistled for Selti, who slipped into the tent in his runner form. The dakkan took up most of the space in the tent, so Birch retrieved the last few pieces of his armor and told his gray mount to wait outside. Perklet’s dakkan followed suit, and the two paladins quickly set about tightening their armor.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into this, Perky,” Birch said. “You should have stayed behind with the army where it was safe.”
“It was supposed to be safe here,” Perklet replied, helping Birch settle his shoulders. “Besides, if I hadn’t come, I might never have found out the truth. So much is clearer to me now, just knowing what I’ve heard. If I die today, I will only lament the lost opportunity to tell others what I’ve learned.”
Birch turned and smiled at the Green paladin.
“You’ve really changed since I first met you, Perklet,” Birch said, “and I think you’re that much stronger for it. I’m proud to call you my friend.”
Wordlessly, the two men clasped hands and stared intently at each other, and Perklet marveled that he no longer flinched away from the flames in Birch’s eyes. Their experience atop the now-fallen fortress had apparently anesthetized him to the horrors visited on those who met Birch’s gaze.
They parted, and Birch settled his helmet then lifted his shield on his left arm.
“Let’s go,” he said, and he held back the tent flap for the Green paladin.
Siran’s elves formed an honor row on either side of the tent, their weapons held respectfully in a salute. Erelim and Cherubim hovered overhead in a similar display, and for a moment there was absolute silence. The two dakkans waited at the far side of the honor guard, and Birch and Perklet quickly made their way past the elves and mounted their dakkans. Kaelus walked up and stood between them. The demon’s head was on a level with Birch, and they regarded each other silently.
At an unspoken command, they started forward at a trot with the Elan’Vital trailing close behind and the angels keeping pace overhead. They moved at the resolute pace of men determined to face their destiny standing and to sell their lives at only the most exacting cost.
The nearest group of the encircling demons was soon in sight, and immediately the angels fanned out and began firing their bows as quickly as they could pick out targets. Birch lifted a bow from Selti’s saddle and added several arrows of his own. Perklet gasped in surprised when he saw that Birch wielded the same style bow as the immortals and fired arrows of crimson power – Perklet had seen the bow before, but taken little note of it. His arrows might lack the inherent essence of the holy immortals, but the demon āyus inside him provided enough power that the blows he struck were as lethal as any angel’s.
As they drew closer, Kaelus formed glowing balls of blue fire in his claws and hurled them into the oncoming ranks. Damned souls were reduced to ashes in an instant while around them hundreds fell to the arrows of the angels. Still they charged forward, ten thousand or more strong as they hurried to overrun the pitifully outnumbered forces that defended the demonic commander of the Heavenly Hosts. When Kaelus’s honor guard slowed to await the demons, Birch and Perklet quickly dismounted and their dakkans leapt airborne.
The Elan’Vital took the fore as the enemy drew close, and a wave of damned souls broke over the elves and parted to either side. Quickly, the elves closed in to seal the rear, and they formed a circle of protection around Kaelus, who continued to hurl fiery death into the throng of twisted souls. In the skies above, dark clouds of winged monstrosities swept down toward the angels, who unleashed volley after volley of glowing arrows. Selti flew overhead alongside Perklet’s mount, but the two dakkans stayed close to their paladins to keep them safe. One dense cluster of gremlins slipped past the dakkans, but they were consumed by a cloud of blue flame Kaelus breathed out as they approached, and only a puff of black ash escaped the azure holocaust.
“Siran, tighten on the left!” Birch bellowed, shoving a damned creature out of the way with his shield and lunging with his sword to strike a drolkul standing behind it. An elf to Birch’s right cried out and fell to the ground clutching his chest. Without turning, Birch shouted, “Perklet, healing!”
He was vaguely aware of the elf being dragged from his sight, and a minute later he looked again and saw the same elf – newly healed – fighting beside him once more.
Their circle of protection shrank slowly but surely as elves fell to the claws of the monsters pressed around them. The elf on Birch’s right was hauled out of the circle by a raging drolkul, and Birch knew better than to hope for the man’s life a second time.
A damned soul stumbled in front of Birch and looked up at him fearfully in the instant before he split its head open with his sword. Another monster replaced it a second later, and this one looked just as reluctant to engage the Gray paladin. For a brief instant, Birch was reminded of the handful of damned creatures he’d tried to save in the Barrier War and their reluctance to fight.
The damned! Birch thought, spearing one of them with the spike on his shield. He twisted to free the shield, cutting another creature down with his sword as he stepped back to rejoin the circle of protection.
“Kaelus, look around us!” Birch thought forcefully, trying to contact the demon directly, mind-to-mind as the immortals did. He’d never consciously tried to speak to Kaelus since they separated, and he was pleasantly surprised when he responded.
“We’re surrounded, Birch,” Kaelus kythed back grimly. “What do you expect me to see?”
“Most of them are damned souls,” Birch replied. “Free them. Free them as you did those poor souls at the Barrier. They’re being forced to fight on behalf of a realm where they were never supposed to be. Talk to them. Tell them the truth. They’re free!”
“I’ll try,” Kaelus kythed, his doubts obvious. Still connected to Birch, his thoughts continued to stream into the paladin’s mind. “No, I will not try. I will do it. Doubt cannot exist. This is truth. I must convince them. Doubts will betray me.”
Birch listened to the demon’s monologue of thoughts and tried to maintain his focus on the battle before him. Fortunately, the elves to either side of him were skilled warriors, and they covered his occasional lapse.
“What?” Kaelus’s surprised voice intruded again into Birch’s mind. “Uriel is on his way with the Archangels. Aesthma is dead, so is Garet jo’Meerkit.”
There was no time for Birch to spare even a moment of remorse for his former companion. If Birch fell today, perhaps their souls might still fight side-by-side.
“There’s too many, Uriel,” Birch overheard Kaelus’s reply. “If we’re still overrun, I want you to stay clear. There’s nothing you can do. No heroics, that’s an order.”
Kaelus’s voice fell silent a moment as he concentrated. Birch stayed alert for the demon’s thoughts, knowing that if this failed they were all doomed.
“I need a soul,” Kaelus told him, and Birch immediately complied. He speared his shield into the ground, grabbed the nearest damned soul, then spun and crouched, hurling the creature over his shoulder and into the waiting arms of Kaelus. Birch whirled back, retrieved his shield, and continued fighting.
Kaelus grasped the damned soul in his claws, careful not to injure the struggling thing that had once been a human male. He rumbled something to the soul, which immediately ceased its panicked attempts to escape.
In a voice that could probably be heard halfway across the immortal plane, Kaelus thundere
d a single word.
“WITNESS!”
Without warning, the battle suddenly stopped as every damned soul ceased moving and turned its attention to Kaelus. Demons gestured and roared in fury, but were ignored in favor of the red-skinned giant who spoke with unassailable authority, and they, too, eventually fell into a baffled silence. Kaelus began to speak to the creature in his grasp, speaking in the immortal tongue and communicating directly to the essence of its tormented soul. He spoke of freedom and of choice, and of the beliefs that chained the soul to damnation. Slowly the fear in the damned soul’s eyes faded and was replaced by wonder.
Time slowed as the body in Kaelus’s claws went limp and a faint flicker appeared at the creature’s chest. A transparent hand, normal and human in appearance, emerged from the body and was quickly followed by an arm, then a head as the mortal man’s soul emerged and freed itself from the twisted confines of his captivity. The specter stared in piteous joy at Kaelus for a moment and reached a hand toward him, then an unfelt wind swept past and the soul disappeared. The empty shell crumbled to dust in Kaelus’s hands.
Kaelus spoke more loudly then, and he repeated what he’d just told the soul – no longer damned, but free. His voice carried and was heard by every being on the battlefield who was or had once been mortal. His words touched the very nature of their existence, but they carried a message so profound it went beyond anything that could ever be said. He did not just tell them words, he told them Truth, and one by one they all received his gift and believed.
First a dozen, then a hundred souls freed themselves from the twisted existence to which they had been condemned, shackled by their own belief and unknowing choice. Hundreds became thousands, and in one glorious moment, the air was thick with the souls of men and women who stared about them in joy until an ethereal wind carried them away. The bodies left behind, twisted and misshapen as they were, crumbled to dust until all of the damned had been freed.
The demons stared in stunned disbelief, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Kaelus’s words had been only for mortal ears, and the demons had heard nothing beyond his initial proclamation. They fell back and stared with terrified awe at the figure of Kaelus, who radiated a power unlike any they had ever felt.
At their greatest moment of disarray and confusion, Uriel arrived and struck with the force of Heavenly wrath.
Half of the Archangels flew almost touching the ground and swept up into the air, unleashing a triple volley of arrows that felled every demon within a dozen yards of the besieged elves. The others descended a moment later from the clouds above and emptied the sky of demons, who had been left vulnerable without the flights of damned souls to shield them.
Taking advantage of the situation, Kaelus bellowed the order for a charge, and the elves surged forward with surprising vigor and speed. Birch ran full out and even laughed with the sheer joy of still being alive, and as they plowed into the disorganized ranks of the demons, he struck with renewed strength.
Drolkuls and balrogs, gremlins and imps, all fell before the piercing wedge of the Elan’Vital as they drove toward the heart of the demon force. With Uriel and the Archangels providing additional support from the air, they made quick headway as the demons put up little resistance and even began to flee in terror.
In the distance, Birch caught sight of two blue-skinned, humanoid demons hovering naked in the air, their leathery, black wings holding them aloft with steady strokes.
“Azazel and Succubus,” Kaelus kythed to Birch. “I never expected to find them leading these troops. He is as cowardly as he is foolishly brazen, depending on the tide of the battle, and Succubus is no better.”
“Why then are they waiting there for us?” Birch wondered. “Their forces are on the run.”
“Beware a trap,” Kaelus replied.
No sooner had the thought reached Birch’s mind than the ground in front of him erupted as a massive drolkul sprang from the cloudy earth. The demon’s flesh was sheathed in what Birch realized was a second skin made from the flesh of the damned, which apparently gave the demon some protection against the effects of Heaven’s touch. It seemed Arthryx had left some of his twisted innovations behind.
Drolkuls appeared all around the elves and even behind them, and a dozen of the Elan’Vital were overwhelmed and torn to pieces before they could properly regroup and defend themselves. Overhead, waves of black arrows fell from the sky, but the Archangels quickly scrambled and avoided most of the missiles. Some fell to strike the elves below, and those who were struck crumpled to the ground and writhed in pain.
Selti screeched piercingly and spiraled to the ground, his wings a bloody mess of torn, blackened flesh. Perklet’s mount wasn’t far behind, and it crashed to the ground in an even worse condition atop a small cluster of demons and knocked them all sprawling.
Azazel screamed orders from his aerial vantage, gesticulating wildly to his forces. Clouds of demons swarmed angels, who disappeared screaming as they were engulfed by the murderous packs of their eternal foes. An oversized platoon of childris crawled out of a cavern of flesh opened in the ground and immediately launched an assault on the elves. They came at Birch, who felt his blood run cold at the sight of so many of the mantis-like demons. Black spears tore into the elven ranks and knocked men back with the force of the impact.
Siran shouted, “Elan’Vital! Tomain ilith childeris do’alianori!”[30]
The elves cried out wordlessly in response and attacked with a speed and skill Birch had never before seen. Their weapons blurred and were all but invisible, and the elves themselves moved almost as quickly. Still the childris came, but now their deadly assault was met with an equally lethal fervor, and they made little headway against the elves. Kaelus incinerated two childris with balls of azure fire and sent another screeching in retreat as blue flames slowly ate through the demon’s carapace.
Again, though, Birch felt the circle of their defenses tightening ever so slowly as elves were brought down by their foes. Every demon slain was replaced an instant later in a seemingly endless stream of unholy monsters, while every elf who fell left the circle that much smaller. Birch saw that inevitably they would fail, and even the might of Kaelus could never prevail against so many.
As if thinking of the demon summoned him, Birch felt a pulsing heat on one side and saw that Kaelus had joined the fray beside him.
“If we can push near enough to Azazel, I might be able to reach him with a bit of fire and drive him off,” Kaelus told Birch. “Follow me, and bring the elves.”
“Siran!” Birch shouted as he fell in behind the demon. Kaelus waded into the press of demonic foes and ripped to shreds those who, eons ago, he might have once called brother. Most of the demons moved out of his way, but a few of the more powerful fiends tried to stand against him and were unfailingly hurled aside, torn apart, or burned to ash. Siran charged at Birch’s side, and the elves of the Elan’Vital fought in a desperate cluster to follow in the demon’s wake.
A wall of blue flame sprang up before the horned demon and bent into a wedge that he drove before him, incinerating lesser demons and scattering their more powerful brethren. Kaelus began to pick up speed, plowing headlong into the press of demons and carving a path with his plow of blue flame. His goal, Azazel, remained hovering where they had last seen him, his naked paramour at his side, and both demons looked alarmed at their rapidly approaching foe. Kaelus was just beginning to make headway when – in mid-stride – he cried out wordlessly in pain, twisted awkwardly, and slammed shoulder-first into the cloudy earth.
The wall of flames died as the demon struck the ground.
Birch saw the gleam of a blue, angelic arrow embedded in Kaelus’s right calf and stared in confusion. The arrow had struck with such power that the head had passed through Kaelus’s leg and was visible on the other side.
Angels never miss, he thought idly, unable to understand what he was seeing.
Howling in glee, powerful demons leapt atop the fallen Kaelus an
d slashed with their claws, tearing into his flesh and eliciting bellows of pain from the trapped demon. Kaelus reared back once, arms spread defiantly as he hurled demons from his back, but weakened as he was with an angelic arrow piercing his leg, Kaelus was crushed to the ground again by the sheer press of demons who leapt back atop him. Birch waded into the fray, swinging his sword in wide arcs to cut a path to Kaelus. A childris charged forward and knocked Birch sprawling, but the demon was cut down by Siran before it could reach Kaelus. Birch’s head spun as he rolled on the ground, blood streaming down his face from a gash on his forehead.
Alone, the elven captain cleared a space above Kaelus, who lay on the ground unmoving. Siran stood warily over the fallen demon and tried to keep an eye on every direction at once as he guarded his charge.
“Touch him, and I will destroy you,” Siran said in a low voice. He was covered in the blood of his men and his own crimson life seeped slowly from a hundred minor wounds, but he cut such an imposing figure that for a moment no one moved.
One drolkul, more foolish than the rest, lurched forward and was immediately beheaded. Another tried to attack Siran from behind, but the elven warrior spun and used the demon’s momentum to hurl him into his fellows. Before he passed beyond Siran’s reach, the elf lopped off both of the demon’s clawed feet.
Birch struggled to clear the dizziness in his head, but before he could move, powerful demonic arms encircled him. Four arms held him fast and prevented him from applying any leverage he might use to free himself. Even were Birch to call on his demon-enhanced strength, he knew enough about wrestling to know the drolkul could hold him fast with little effort. Birch could just make out a large flight of angels – all that remained of the Archangels – soaring down from the skies, but they were too far away and were intercepted by a churning cloud of aerial demons.
The crowd of demons parted to allow a pair of naked, human-looking demons to approach. Azazel and Succubus were covered with fire-blooded claw marks that looked self-inflicted, and there was an unholy, carnal glow about them that made Birch recoil. The drolkul holding him rumbled in laughter.
Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) Page 44