Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (58 page)

“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.

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.