*
Now he was almost there, his sword strokes weakening, amidst the many wounds he had suffered, but still he pressed on. His eyes blazed green with envy, as he looked upon the favoured companions of his General. Stumbling, he used his momentum to spear his blade into Bia’s back, the blood congealing almost instantly as he withdrew the weapon. Her lungs though were ruptured and bright, arterial blood, frothed through the rents and tears within her, escaping from her mouth and nostrils.
Nike tried to help, but Chaps was inhumanely possessed, a feint, a strike, a cut and she lay almost quartered before him. Manic laughter bubbled from his throat as he now faced his General. Cratos struggling to depress the arc of the cannon, but to no avail. Chaps’ first sweeping blow shearing off his right ankle and dropping the man to one knee.
The Private looked on, his rage increasing as he looked around him, as he felt the many rounds striking his now yielding flesh. His spittle ran redly from his lips, his breath sawing as he fought for air, but still he had enough energy to grin, to smile and to speak, “You betrayed me!” he gasped as he struck, “You were mine!”
*
His fall and the blade’s arc carried him towards the General, the singing metal paring away armour and skin. It sliced through a collarbone, burst a heart and exited in a spray of bile and intestines. Cratos had long ago lost his smile, his understanding and the Church this battle. Their defeat had begun with Zelos and ended with Chaps.
This day had been Leviathan’s, and so he raged, they had disturbed his sleep and now would pay.
Chapter Five
Gula
Such as that dog is, who by barking craves,
And quiet grows soon as his food he gnaws,
For to devour it he but thinks and struggles
- The Inferno, Dante
Beelzebub tore a swath of cloth from the hangings in front of him and wiped his mouth, the sticky excrement of death still clung to his lips and he fastidiously cleaned each purple and bloated tongue of flesh. He could not get enough of the sweet wine of war, but there were proprieties to be observed, after all.
Even his stupendous appetites had been tested today and still there was more to come. Burping sickly, his wide mouth open in an approving leer, he gazed down on the battlefield. Immortals, soldiers, demons and all, he accepted them; he did not discriminate between the quality or worth of souls, he only fed.
He saw Leviathan rise and knew that he could not resist, his slickly glistening fingers entered his mouth in a time-practiced fashion and the demon practised his bolemic cleansing.
*
Geriond felt his rebirth, the liquid and jostling shiver as he cascaded once more into the real world. One amongst many semi-digested souls, he spewed forth and hovered indecisively near to Beelzebub. With a wave of his hand, the demon ushered his three-headed pet forward from its position guarding the entrance, and it instantly began to harvest the now listless entities, fluttering weakly in their unexpected freedom.
The ex-Leftenant seemed somehow more sentiently aware and tried his hardest to escape the hoovering maw in front of him. Feral eyes burned triply, as Cerberus snarled and smacked his lips. There was a tug, a wrenching of his inexistence and Geriond felt himself pulled away, drawn inexorably back to a more corporeal state.
*
“Fire!”, the man to his left screamed, and the battle-cannon roared, spitting forward its hellish charge. Someone had decided to increase the blood-yielding capacity of their weapons and had resuscitated canister charges. This reinvention had also been improved to create a double-effect bomblet. The exploding charge sprayed smaller rounds which caused initial shrapnel-like carnage, their final gift being a secondary shower of mortiferous rage as they too expended their potential.
As he watched the destruction, Geriond almost vomited, yet the shock of his reawakening held him back. Looking down he was conscious of his ragged tunic and the eye-clashing tattoos scrawled across the flesh beneath. He opened his mouth to scream, but a sharp slap to the back of his head brought him back.
”Focus!” snarled his companion, urging him towards the awaiting pile of ammunition, “Just do your job and we might survive this! At least we are better off than them!”
Geriond followed the direction indicated by the man’s nodding head, and watched as Tauran forces raced towards the battle. The charges from their cannons decimating both sides indiscriminately. Now he could distinguish infernal laughter, could smell the stink of unwholesome fear and more. This time he was not part of any righteous attack against demon-spawned troops; he was one of them!
*
Being from and of the fabric of folded space, gave Beelzebub something, it meant that he did not need to fully cross into the nightmare reality of the battlefield. Today, he was as close as he needed to be, the scale of annihilation had drawn him here to feast, and of all of his brothers, Leviathan was the most trustworthy in providing the excesses that he required.
That which had been life essence, now needed little encouragement to enter into his world, his place. Cerberus did not need to guard against unwelcome intruders, rather his task was to stop them from leaving, snatching his own party snacks in the process. The portal which acted both as window and entrance to the souls, was even now clogged with the myriad of shifting forms, that was the most recent of battle crops.
As he breathed in deeply, wispy, smoking clouds screamed into his open mouth, writhed snake-like into his nostrils and circled helplessly about his head. His shape was changing, bloating into that of a disgusting slug-like creature, its huge head and bulbous tongue expanding to keep up with the rich influx of foodstuff. He was losing himself in the ecstacy of overindulgence and even Cerberus began to falter, his heads weaving in concern, his eyes pleading for some form of restraint. Beelzebub was not want to listen.
*
Round after round belched outwards, Geriond caught up in the monotonous mechanics of the artilleryman. His ears bled from the buffeting of noise and his nose had long ago closed up, the strip of cloth bound across his face, serving only to allow a gasping breath between each titanic eruption. His skin stung with the particles caught in the gun’s backwash and he had long ago forgotten anything but the repetitive world in which he now existed.
*
Cerberus mewled plaintively as his Master continued his gluttonous swelling, his skin stretching and slithering across the floor. His mouth was open wide, a continuous stream entering, with no pause for swallowing, nor respite. Their demon-created habitation was beginning to spill out into the real world below, the huge and flopping Beelezebub uncontrollably oozing past the entrance.
A maloderous and gag-inducing bubble of gas accompanied a tremendous burp of sound, and Cerberus thought for the slightest of moments that sanity had returned, but it was not to be. It was purely Beelzebub making room, his mouth now almost splitting his face as he gulped in greedily once more.
*
The slimy feel of flesh, rank and flaccid, dripping onto his shoulder broke into Geriond’s reality. Glancing upwards he saw what appeared to be a rent in the sky from which dribbled a constant stream of shapeless skin. It clung to that which it touched, as though intent on absorbing its victim’s solidity. He scrabbled around looking for something to use against his attacker and found a spade, where it had been tossed. Using the edge of its blade, he scraped the amorphous slime off him and scuttled backwards, burning his back against the red-hot barrel of the cannon.
On it came, now pouring downwards and he was not the only one intent on flight. Tauran troopers broke and ran, preferring to take their chances upon the battlefield, rather than stay and be consumed. Somehow Geriond had backed himself into a corner, literally, and he could only watch in abject terror as the thing crept towards him. Striking down with the spade seemed to have little effect, the mindless, pulsing blob ignoring his feeble blows.
At the first touch of it against his boot he began to scream, his mind lost in the horror of the fate awaiting
him.
*
It was a self-propogating reaction now, not only was the unconcerned carnage of the battle providing him with fodder, but also the osmotic absorption of new victims. There seemed to be no end to Beelzebub’s capacity for expansion as his form now spanned two realities and threatened to claim them both.
Even Cerberus was over-awed, he pawed at the jelly-like substance that had been his Master, recoiling quickly in disgust as it tried to adhere to his questing limb. Soon, there would be no room here for him and with a snarl of frustration, he leapt over the exploring tendrils and through the portal, crashing down onto the floor beneath. As soon as his feet touched the more solid earth he leapt again instantly, his jump carrying up onto the top a battle cannon, next to a cowering soldier.
He did not stay to help, nor to contemplate the fate of this man nor the now compromised world, rather he sprang quickly away, not even pausing once to look back.
*
The unfairness of the situation crashed down onto Geriond and he began to laugh insanely; vomited back into existence, to be consumed once more by what looked like mucus, truly fate had played him a terrible hand. Anger then replaced fear and he screamed in rage, looking round for some way to fight back. He was on top of one of four cannons, whose structure was still above the now living carpet.
“Sod this!” he cursed, easing his feet tentatively down onto the floor and then jumping across to the next gun, whose pile of ammunition was stacked nearby. Taking a breath to steady himself, he opened the locking wheel and legs bent struggled a shell up into the cannon’s breach. With a final jerk he slid the round home and locked the mechanism and muttering, “One down!” reached down for the next charge.
By the time he had loaded all of the cannons, the first one was half-covered by the rising tide of that which had been Beelzebub. Geriond had fixed a longer length of lanyard to each of the modified weapons and stood and waited for his end.
The whole of the gun emplacement was now full, the viscous gel rising slowly as Beelzebub fed. First it covered his feet, then his knees, flowing down now in a constant stream. The cords in his hand were at full tension and he watched the guns as they disappeared one after the other beneath the creeping tide.
*
Beelzebub did not know why he had never given in to his primal urge for excess before, he had passed the point where he felt that he could burst, expanding both his mind and flesh in the act. Now he was a part of both worlds, drawing nourishment from each and there was really nothing to stop him. There was no need for Leviathan, nor the deaths of screaming soldiers, he could create his own deaths and feed on their souls.
Holding that thought in his mind, he rolled the centre of his being outwards and through the portal, the main part slipping through. Tentacles could remain here in the demonic reality to feed, but below there was an unlimited room for expansion as well as consumption.
*
An enormous ball of something fell through the portal and Geriond knew that this was the end. With a howl of defiance he yanked on the lanyards, the shells exploding inside the barrels as the jelly-like flesh of the demon impeded their exit from the barrel.
The primary charge split the restricting metal, spraying hot fragments into the body of goo around it. There was not much spreading of the charge as the surrounding viscosity deadened individual momentum. It was then the secondary bomblets exploded, gouging holes in the flesh and spraying it skywards geyser-like in places. Yet the centre remained, merely bulging in response to the eruptions beneath.
Gradually the trembling ceased, the shape gelling together, before it began its inexorable march once more.
Interlude
Take, O take him, mighty Leader,
Take again thy servant's soul,
To the house from which he wandered
Exiled, erring, long ago.
"Hymnus X: Ad Exequias Defuncti", translation by Helen Waddell
High upon the hillside, he stood and wept at the sheer scale of stupidity displayed before him. Untold dead and mangled bodies lay rotting in the valleys below, yet still the two sides fought. There was nothing of comprehension here for him, only his need to persevere and choose.
He turned and stared, his gaze moving slowly round the hill-top, at the shattered and twisted remains of the Champions, already representatives from both sides had failed, and they had done so, far too easily. Their bodies lay broken and burnt, testament to their demise, whether from flame, stone, metal or gun it was difficult to be absolutely sure.
There below he could see the physical results of his illusionary game, the earth heaved in protest as Leviathan and Beelzebub warred. Their disputed dominion, rent and ploughed an unholy furrow across the already battle-scarred landscape. Still, he knew it was not over, the final solution was in the balance and there was more, much more death to be sown on this fallow field.
Once again he looked closely at those nearby; the two, rough semi-circles now broken where the bodies had fallen. It was unusual to some extent that at least two of the corpses had seemingly crossed over from their previous allegiances and still some other survivors were undecided. Of particular interest to him, was that of the three-headed minion of Beelzebub, there was conflict there, he could tell.
Three of them, still maintaining their catatonic state, were untouched, awaiting their summons to enter the fray. His fingers trailed carelessly across the shoulders of one as he paused, his thoughts for a moment interrupted by smoke and thunder. The battlefield was clouded now, as the opposing artillery exchanged shots, the rolling roar of the guns speaking loudly of their intensity.
Beelzebub’s rent in the fabric of real space still remained and it jarred incongruously with the rest of the inhabitants of this world. It give him an advantage, an edge, which he was exploiting ruthlessly as his gluttonous expansion continued. There was only one of those remaining who could seal the horrendous portal, and nothing in the actions of that particular being was certain.
He knelt, his hand resting on the cold and torn flesh of the only one of them, who had caused him, the unwilling sentinel, pain. His unexpected and very personal reaction to this Champion’s demise had made him step in, draw the youth back from the fields of the dead, only to have to experience his death again. It was unfortunate, but of them all he had been the only one to show even a modicum of that which the being searched for. So, reluctantly, he would be given one last chance.
It seemed that whoever this one touched, or wherever he was, mayhem and destruction followed; the young man was dangerously infectious. His further involvement could catalyse many things, he only hoped that they would be useful to the process.
Casting aside his doubts, he began his chant once again, a mist rising and swirling around his feet and the bodies of the remaining Champions, as the ambient temperature plummeted with the effects of his spell. One way or another it would soon be over, and the task which he had set himself completed.
*
Cerburus stared at the strange chanting being in front of him, somehow he was held here, his capacity for movement restricted, yet his vision unimpaired. This was slightly untruthful, as not all of his vision functioned, only that which saw the past and experienced the present. Those eyes which looked into the future were clouded, although the head which contained them remained as erect as the others.
His peripheral vision allowed him to see the most of his other companions in silence, and although he did not recognise them all, he knew enough to be perplexed and not a little concerned. That there were also mutilated bodies, whose injuries appeared to have been earned in some violent confrontation, also raised numerous questions, to which right now he had no answers.
He saw the young man’s body become enfolded by the mist’s tendrils, ice forming on his face and exposed limbs, causing the crispiness of his flesh and ghastly wounds to become hidden. Interestingly, as the chant continued, the once-dead human rose into a sitting position, his eyes opening into the sightless gaz
e, not of the dead, but of those others sat beside him. No wounds now broke the surface of his skin, rather a robustness of health instead shone through.
The sing-song nature of the voice continued and Cerberus felt his consciousness slip, the effort required to remain attentive and alert becoming arduous. He had seen enough for now and so let his mind ebb away with the flow of the atonal repitition. Something told him he needed to look for this tall human, to protect him and help him in his assigned task, whatever that might be.
Chapter Six
Ira
Be silent, thou accursed wolf;
Consume within thyself with thine own rage.
- The Inferno, Dante
A blinding flash of light and a resonating echo of pain snapped Geriond awake. In front of him Church forces fought and died as they pushed forward against what appeared an unending wall of Taurans. He could see men thrown backwards by exploding shot; skin, blood and bone sent whistling through the air as human shrapnel. A cry sounded to his left and he turned to see a Guardsman whose face was laid open, the offending material lodged into the side of his helmet; a sharp bone fragment, which had lost any other identifying marks.
The urge to do something brought him to his feet from the semi-crouch he had adopted, a movement which dizzied him; he was enormous. Raising one hand, with which he intended to wipe his brow, caused him to stop and stare. The offending object was sheathed in armour, a glance down confirming that all of him was so covered. On his chest was a burnished and silvered Angel and it was then he knew who or rather what he was. His own cry of anguish had startled the troopers by his side and he internally recoiled from the equal mix of awe and fear he saw in their eyes.
Sinking back onto his haunches, which comforted him somewhat as he regained a more usual perspective, he checked over himself. Encased in augmented armour, abnormally tall and stout, a pistol by his hip and what appeared to be some form of whip coiled at his side there really could be only one conclusion; he was dead. That was, rather, the only way he could have joined the Great One’s blessed soldiers; he had ascended to be by his side. Although, the battle in front of him seemed incongruously out of place; why were the Taurans here? Why were Churchmen dying? Was he paying a penance in some blessed Purgatory?
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