Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (83 page)

“Puny mortal,”
Daella growled. Her inhumanly perfect lips peeled back from gleaming teeth,
revealing two elongated canines.

“Mortal?” Danner
replied with a wry smile.

As Daella surged
forward to attack again, Danner’s wings flared to life, throwing the demoness
off-balance in surprise. Her eyes widened in recognition.

“Nephilim!” she
exclaimed in undisguised shock. The Blue paladin reacted instinctively and
slashed with his sword at Daella, who leapt out of reach, then circled the Blue
paladin warily. She dissolved into a haze once again, and two glowing eyes
watched Danner carefully.

Across the room,
the demon king had regained his feet and braced himself against an attack that
never came. Birch remained where he was, calmly staring down his infernal
opponent, practically daring him to look into his eyes yet again.

“How?”
Mephistopheles roared, and the walls shook with the force of his fury. “How is
this possible?”

He hurled a ball
of black fire at Birch, who batted the obsidian flame away as he would a gnat.
The demon king threw a spear of black ice at Birch, but it melted even as it
touched the surface of his armor, leaving the burnished steel unmarked.

“It is possible
because he chooses it to be possible, Mephistopheles,” a deep voice rumbled
behind Birch. Without turning around, the Gray paladin heard chains shatter and
Kaelus came to stand next to him.

Danner briefly
caught his uncle’s eye, but he kept his attention on the indistinct presence
that hovered menacingly nearby. Daella attacked then, a hand and sword amidst
the black smoke, the only corporeal part of her body. Danner’s lightning
reflexes allowed him to catch and turn the attack, and he nearly cut off
Daella’s arm in retaliation as she jerked it clear. The smoky demon hissed in
loathing and circled Danner warily. Twice more the demoness attacked, but
Danner was a match for her speed, his training a match for her cunning.

Birch nodded
once, thankful his nephew was there to deter Daella. Newfound power and
awareness notwithstanding, Birch was uncertain he and Kaelus could overcome the
combined might of Hell’s two most powerful residents.

“I am the King
of Hell!” Mephistopheles raged. “None can thwart my will and power here. None!
Not Maya, not Kaelus, not even God Himself can touch me here.”

“God is the
least of your worries, demon,” Birch told him. “Your fate was sealed by your
own deity, whom you have forgotten. You wanted answers? It was Satan Himself
who freed both Kaelus and me and set us on the path that brought us before you.
As you feel your
āyus
ebb away and your existence unravel, think on
the consequences of not showing piety to your God, no matter whom He might be.”

“There is no
Shaitan!” Mephistopheles screamed. “I am the King of Hell. I was the first
demon, and I will exist long after the last of the immortals has faded into the
nether.”

The demon king’s
body began to writhe and pulse. His muscles knotted over as his arms began to
swell, and two horns pierced the flesh of his head and rose majestically above
him.

“Kaelus!” Birch
barked, and the red-skinned demon immediately responded. Kaelus vanished from
sight in the blink of an eye. He appeared just behind Mephistopheles and
clamped his powerful arms around the demon king. Black and crimson talons tore
at each other as Mephistopheles strove to overcome Kaelus, but the blood-red
demon was too powerful and had the physical advantage of him. Physical strength
usually meant little between contesting immortals, but in a struggle between
two entities as evenly matched as Kaelus and Mephistopheles, it meant enough.
Kaelus wrestled the demon king’s arms back and pinned them behind him. When Mephistopheles
continued to struggle, Kaelus created another pair of arms to help restrain
him. The demon king flickered briefly as he tried to translocate away, but
Kaelus held him fast.

Black and
crimson power crackled between the two demons, threatening to lash out if
either one gained the advantage. Foreseeing the eventual outcome, Daella gave
up her standoff with Danner, faded to a non-corporeal mist, and fled the throne
room, freeing the half-angel paladin to stand by his uncle’s side. They watched
for what seemed an interminable, breathless moment, until at last Kaelus held
the demon king immobile.

“Now, Birch!”

The Gray paladin
strode forward and quickly mounted the dais with Danner at his side. Birch held
out his hand, and Danner solemnly placed his sword in his uncle’s outstretched
palm. Immediately, the blessed blade burned in Birch’s hand, but he took solace
in the agony as the holy power writhed in his grip. So long as Birch remained
half-demon, any blessed blade would irritate his flesh and sear his
āyus
,
much as it had done when Kaelus had secretly possessed him.

“You cannot do
this!” Mephistopheles screamed in disbelief.

Birch stared at
him and held his gaze, forcing the demon king to submit to his will. Mephistopheles
was held in thrall, and his body froze as Birch cut a horizontal line across
the demon’s chest.

“I could carve
every moment of agony from your hide and make you feel every torture you
inflicted on me a hundred times over,” the Gray paladin said in a grim voice.
“I could hold
you
in thrall for eternity, make you dishnara, keeping you
as
my
personal slave for the most degrading tasks known to man.” He
carved another line lower down, across the demon’s belly. Mephistopheles’s eyes
bulged in terror, but still he was held fast by the combination of Kaelus’s
strength and the force of Birch’s will. “A demon would. A man might be tempted,
at least to exact his revenge. Fortunately for you, I am not a man. I am a
paladin.”

Birch made one
last cut up the demon’s chest, completing the holy
Tricrus
.
Mephistopheles writhed and unleashed a deafening howl of immortal agony. Danner
clutched his ears and fell back a step in pain, and even Kaelus had difficulty
containing the wild thrashing of the fatally wounded demon king. Birch reached
out with his left hand and grasped Mephistopheles’s head and looked deeply into
his eyes. Kaelus let go of Mephistopheles and stepped away – the King of Hell
was once more frozen by the power of Birch’s will.

 “This is a
paladin’s mercy,” Birch said. He released Mephistopheles and, with a two-handed
grip, drove Danner’s sword down through the top of the demon king’s skull.

Fear only that which is worth it. The exceptions to
this are God, life, and death, which should never be feared.

- Birch de’Valderat,

“Memoirs” (1013 AM)

- 1 -

Garnet looked up
at the sound of screaming from the room beyond and nearly lost his head as a
Black Viscia attacked him from behind. He spun and used the Black’s own
momentum to throw him against the nearest wall. Garnet followed up with a swift
strike that left the cursed paladin with only one arm, then turned to look for
another opponent.

He charged
toward a drolkul but was nearly thrown off his feet when the doors to
Mephistopheles’s throne room burst open and a crimson whirlwind surged into the
anteroom. A massive face appeared in the spiraling pillar of wind, and Garnet
recognized the demonic features of Kaelus.

The whirlwind
expanded to encompass the whole room, and Garnet felt himself drawn up as a
swirl of power swept through him. He saw nothing but red and felt no wind
around him. Garnet closed his eyes, trusting the demon to carry them to safety.

When his vision
at last cleared, Garnet was standing on the plains of Abaddon with the palace
well behind them. The entire force of paladins and denarae was there with him,
including those who had stayed outside to fight the daemelans, which were
nowhere in sight. He grinned and looked for his friends.

Garnet saw
Trebor and Guilian hurrying toward a knot of people, and he quickly followed in
their wake. His breath caught in his throat as he looked down at the bloody
shape laying on the ground. Flasch’s violet cloak was twisted beneath him and
he lay crumpled in a heap, drenched in blood.

No one said a
word as Trebor knelt by their friend’s side and reached a hand toward his
throat.

Garnet held his
breath while he waited.

“He’s alive!”
Trebor proclaimed in surprise.

Flasch groaned
and rolled onto his back as Trebor probed his body for injuries. The dead Green
paladin frowned.

“I don’t think
there’s more than a scratch or two on him,” he said in confusion. “Most of this
is someone else’s blood.” Flasch blinked his eyes, and Trebor helped him to
slowly sit up.

“It’s not
possible,” the denarae said. “I saw the daemelan’s blade strike you. You should
have been cut in
half
.”

Flasch coughed
and spit blood on the ground next to him.

“I remember
reacting and twisting at the last second before I blacked out,” he said
hoarsely, then trailed off, rubbing his head. Flasch looked more than a little
confused himself as he probed his side with his fingers. His armor had a deep
gash cut through it where the demon’s blade had struck a blow that – as Trebor
said – should have shorn the Violet paladin in twain. Flasch shifted the
tattered edge of his armor and revealed a flimsy strip of cloth that Garnet
immediately recognized as a scarf he’d given to his sister a few years before.
He also recognized the knot tied in the material, and he sighed in resignation
even as he grinned at his friend’s miraculous survival.

The scarf was
cut, but not deeply, as though a massive blade had struck but had been turned
aside by the flimsy material. At least that was one explanation.

“You are the luckiest
son of a bitch in the world,” Trebor marveled.

“Either that or
some things are stronger than demon steel,” Flasch murmured. He looked up at
Garnet and saw the smile on his face, then answered with a grin of his own.

Nearby, Danner
and Birch stood next to Kaelus and surveyed the group. In the distance, the
palace of the demon king slowly began to crumble as its master faded from
existence. As one, the entire group turned to watch the demonstone structure
collapse. Aside from Kaelus, there wasn’t a demon in sight as the palace fell,
so they stayed to watch in silence. Not all of the palace fell in, but by the
time the black dust settled, more than half of the structure lay in ruins.

Birch turned to
Kaelus.

“Can you take us
all the way back to Medina?”

The demon
nodded.

“Then let’s go.”

Kaelus spun once
in a circle and crimson power engulfed them all.

- 2 -

Molekh bellowed
a war cry of sheer bloodlust and tore a Cherub’s wings from her back before
crushing her angelic skull. He tossed the twitching pieces to the side,
ignoring them as they dissolved into motes of light and disappeared. Strength
and unholy power suffused his body, his
āyus
strengthened by the
angelic blood-letting that surrounded him as he tasted victory.

The path to the
Hall of the Throne was open! The battle raged on around him, but a force of
childris had cleared a swath of destruction through the ranks of the blessed
dead, and now only a single flight of angels stood between Molekh and his goal.
He rallied the demons around him and charged forward, eyes locked on the angel
leading the final obstruction.

Uriel and the
Archangels stood before Molekh, vastly outnumbered but resolute in their
determination to deny him access to the Throne. A battered female Dominion
stood to Uriel’s left with Molekh’s severed horn hanging from a steel chain
around her neck. Opposite her, on Uriel’s right side, stood an emerald-winged,
saffron Seraph, and Molekh was both thrilled and terrified to see Mikal present
and ready for battle. Two of the most powerful angels left in Heaven, but they
would fall this day like all the rest. Nothing would deny Molekh his prize.

Molekh grinned
at the surging tide of balrogs and drolkuls advancing behind a wave of
childris. The Archangels set themselves for battle and waited for the first
line of childris to strike. Molekh risked a glance behind him and saw a second
wave of demons in his wake. He laughed in malicious pleasure.

When he turned
back, his ferocious grin faded.

Mikal and Uriel
were farther away than they’d been a moment before!

No, it was a
trick, some last desperate ploy to confuse him. Molekh growled and shook his
head, but it seemed for every step he took forward, he only got that much
farther away from his goal.

“What angelic
trickery is this?” he bellowed. Uriel and the others gaped at Molekh in
confusion as he was steady drawn backwards away from them.

All around him,
demons were charging forward, but the buildings were receding quickly as they
passed backwards out of the city that was all but theirs. Molekh looked about
frantically, trying to identify the source of this new threat, or to break the
hallucination he was surely suffering.

As he passed the
outermost edge of the city, Molekh felt something was different in the aura of
the immortal plane around him. He turned to look back and nearly screamed in
frustration – and in fear. The gray, tainted ground the demons had left in
their wake as they advanced through Heaven was gone, and only pure, white, holy
ground was left behind.

Impossible! The
ground was an extension of Hell as it overtook Heaven, a physical manifestation
of the will of Mephistopheles. The only way for it to suddenly vanish was…

And then Molekh
knew the truth. He no longer felt the will of the demon king, and he knew with
sudden certainty that Mephistopheles had been destroyed. With him, however,
went the power that had driven Hell forward to reunite with Heaven – without
Mephistopheles’s will and power, Hell would be catapulted back to a separate
plane of existence.