Angelslayer: The Winnowing War

by K. Michael Wright

  “Braemacht,” Eryian said, “make the center hard to find.”

  “Aye,” Braemacht nodded and lifted in the saddle. “Axemen, dismount!”

  They did so in unison. Eryian dropped beside Cassium. The horses were taken by warriors and led to the outer ranks, and the queen’s guard closed about her. From the hills, there would have been no sight of her in the center of the circle of warriors.

  The heartbeat of the Unchurians began to increase, both in pace and strength.

  “I do not know about you, my lord,” Braemacht said to Eryian, “but the biggest problem for me this day shall be the wait. Our brothers will not die quickly.”

  Eryian glanced to the scabbard at his thigh. He had left the sword of Righel sheathed, but he saw light spill about the lip of the scabbard, a pulse of it, in rhythm with the beating of the shields of the Unchurians. Eryian knew then the sound was in time with the heart of Azazel. He remembered years ago, even in the beginnings, many of the other angels called him the Reaper. Of all the Star Walkers who swore upon the stone of Ammon, he was the most unpredictable; his blood, even though he had walked as a lord of the choir, had always been hot.

  Eryian glanced aside to Cassium. “Have you thought, my lady, that with your knowledge you should be the one to wield this sword? I have not lifted its hilt in battle in seven hundred years, and never have I wielded it as a mortal.”

  “Its touch would be acid against my skin, Eryian.”

  “I do not understand; you virtually spill the light of heaven from your eyes.”

  “No, Eryian. I seek the light, I seek that it will once more fill my heart, but I am still bound by the oath made upon the mountain of Etlantis that day long ago. I am unforgiven.”

  “I cannot understand what wrong you could possibly bear.”

  She paused. “Loving you,” she replied. “And I would drink from the cup again if offered.”

  She stared back at him, her eyes attesting the truth of her promise. “Eryian, there is only one person who can light the blade of Righel, and that is Righel.”

  “Do you think he knows? That Azazel realizes it is not merely aganon he smells below, but that it is Righel’s sword?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. You have hidden yourself too well—he is clever, but he has no reason to even dream that you have returned to the vale to face him. If I had not been summoned of the talisman, you may even have fooled me, warlord.”

  “It seems by rumor that some of them have grown weaker over the centuries, that some have begun to age, their skin like mortals, like old men. But not him. They whisper he has grown even more powerful, turning all his arts to darkness and the mastery of death.”

  “It is an illusion he casts. The star knowledge fails him as it does the others, but mortal seers do not realize. Since the day he broke his vows, as all of them, he has tried to hold to the light, grip it in his hand, but it spills between his fingers and seven centuries have passed. He is weaker than when last you knew him, far weaker. But for us, with you a mortal, his power is still beyond imagining. But I can promise, even Azazel is not immune, even for him the turning has begun. Your warriors, your king, have opened the eye of Daath and Aza-zel’s weakness began to burn in him like fire against his skin. He feels it now like pain. To fall from the light is a terrible pain, I am told. You spared me; you did not turn me as many of the angels did their Star Walker Queens, so I will not know this pain. And yourself, you surrendered your mantel that you would find your way back as a mortal; thus it is spared, you as well. But I have heard it spoken of others that the pain comes deep from within, a burning in their soul like mortals feel a burning of the flesh. He walks proud still, but he cannot escape the passage, though he was once Bene ba Elohim, he shall die as men shall die, with a belief he has had to sustain, to believe that with the Watchers he can stand against heaven itself in the days of Aeon’s End. Only a being as bright as the Light Bearer could ever have led him this far into denial.” “How long were you his?”

  She turned, startled that he had asked. “You would want to know that?” “I still protect myself through the veil, remember?”

  She half-smiled. “Of course. A year, perhaps more. It was not long before you came to take me. I have always wondered of it, you know. That from the heavens you saw me, and found in me something that drew you so strongly you stepped down from the stars to spare me my soul.”

  “It seems not so hard to believe myself, seeing you again. Though I leave the memories fogged, I can understand why I came for you.”

  Suddenly, from all sides a great roar went up, shouts and cries. Swords and axes lifted high. Eryian could barely make it out, but up high, near Hericlon’s passage, the Unchurians were parting to let a single rider through.

  Near the edge of the southern front, Amathon took up ranks and remained mounted even though he became a prime target in the white cloak and the silvered armor. He would remain so for his men, to let his brothers know he was there, that his voice would guide them on. The horsemen were readied not far behind. They would choose carefully their moment.

  Amathon circled his horse, watching the wall of men and shields from the ridge above lift and descend, like a wave breaking over the Earth. It seemed the air itself pressed against them, and Amathon heard more coming than the sound of their feet. He heard shrieks, whispered screams that passed through the ranks with cold slaps, and he could seem them, Uttuku, the dead of the giants. He and his brothers had not been born on Earth, and throughout his life, he had dedicated himself to the mothering light of the seventh star. Though they had never sung in the choirs of heaven, they still called themselves Seraphim, after their father. Yet still he wondered, if by fault of birth, there was no forgiveness, that his soul would be one those left wandering the Earth. He understood that Eryian had made a supreme sacrifice, that he had not turned their mother, as were most queens of the angels, into the walking undead of the Winternight. But they were Nephilim. Would even the sacrifice made by Righel be able to spare their souls? He felt heaven’s light and he would die this day believing, but the shrieks of the Uttuku left a sinister dread in the deep of his bones.

  The wave coming against them left the Earth trembling in its quake; their weight alone could crush ramparts. The air trembled. The old one, the second of the three who was called Azazel by the men of Earth, had amassed thousands, hundreds of thousands … more. He had brought sons unnumbered and had launched them against the brotherhood of Righel at full run, a torrent. The sons were not giants as Amathon had heard all firstborn of Earth to be; they were smaller than he and his brothers, the size of men, with night-black hair and skin a reddish hue. Azazel’s blood must have been pure in the beginning, almost as filled with light as the archangel, for these Unchurians were much as the Daath. Of course, it would make no difference in battle; their numbers alone would eventually overwhelm the sons of Righel. Still, he wondered why they came, these pure-blood warriors, these first blood of Azazel, as if they had all been carefully selected.

  The circle of white cloaks and silver armor facing them was left no more than a pebble, and the wave that surged came from all sides.

  “Archers!” Amathon shouted. The archers of Righel readied themselves, but Amathon waited; he let the wave in closer. The arrows strained against their sinews. Amathon continued to wait. He could see the battle frenzy burning in their eyes as they charged. Many had streaks of silvered hair to one side, and he knew this was not cosmetic, that it was mark, like a mutation of skin.

  “Fire!” Amathon finally screamed.

  It was a brief shadow that passed. The missiles slammed into the charge and for a moment, the entire circle buckled, folding into the screams of those struck and of others trampled as the wave curled, broke, and continued forward.

  “Load!” Amathon said, pausing this time only a second. “Fire!”

  Again, from the Unchurian front, horses screamed, men crumpled, and a second wave broke over the bodies. The Unchurians grew excited, almost rea
ching their mark, almost to the wall of shields held before the giants.

  “Spears!” shouted Amathon.

  As the archers drew back, spearmen took a slight run and launched their weighted long spears in a straight drive that tore through the Unchurians heavier and more devastating against flesh than the arrows. A final circle of warriors crumpled as the spears slammed through them.

  “Shieldbearers forward, lock shields, and brace!”

  Thousands of them dead already, the Unchurians finally reached the front. Their timing was careful; they struck from all sides at once, the weight of the charge hammered into the Seraphim of Righel. The shields of Righel were staggered, in places were broken, but many of them held, lifting and throwing the Unchurians back, as if they had struck a wall of white stone. “Horsemen!” Amathon cried. “Attack!”

  Like gates swinging open, in places the shield parted, and cavalry, in tight groups of sevens, became like missiles, as well. They drove forward, lances lowering, and bore into the frenzied attack of the Unchurians like carving deep wounds. Many of the lances were shattered, others lodged in their victims, and while some horses fell, many turned and vanished back behind the lines as the shield parted and let them through to regroup.

  “Elyon’s Light, Elyon’s grace,” screamed Amathon. “Hold against them, my brothers!”

  As many as they were, as mighty as the warriors of the Unchurians had been, the wall of white shields locked and for a time held. Between the shields, swords flickered like the tongues of serpents, taking flesh, dropping Unchurians on all sides in a slaughter.

  Cassium touched Eryian’s arm—a furious scream of dying from all sides now, screams of terror, screams of fury, the blows and thundering crash of swords, hammers, and steel. From where they were, in the center, they could see nothing.

  “It is coming hard against them,” Cassium said, listening. “Azazel has filled them with such fury, their hatred so raw it is like a living thing, as if their rage might rise up as a beast to fill the sky.”

  Eryian shifted. His hand curled about the hilt of Righel’s sword, but her fingers touched his wrist.

  “Not yet. Keep it sheathed.”

  “I feel I should move forward, engage, Cassium.”

  “I know, you are a warlord. It is your blood and your training, but for this once resist. What damage you would do would matter little. It is better we wait, Righel, hidden here in the center.” She had stopped calling him Eryian. “He searches, I can feel his mind probing, but he does not find us. You trained me well to hide. All that you taught me in the days of Dawnshroud, I have remembered it all. You call your elite Shadow Walkers, well, I am, as well, a Shadow Walker, Righel,” she said with a smile. “For you, in this world of yours, I suppose this is unlike any battle you have known. You wait. He smells the aganon of the sunblade and yet he cannot sense who bears it. It must be driving him mad.”

  “Can it slay him? Righel’s sword?”

  “If Righel wielded it, as he was when first he came, against the weakened being that is Azazel, yes, it would slay him, or at least it would destroy all but his soul. But you are human; I cannot predict what it will do. He is much stronger than you, warlord. Our greatest weapon will be surprise, but I doubt you can destroy him. Nor do I know what my magick will do against him. You taught me to hone one skill above all others, and I have done so, but this is Azazel, the Reaper, the lord of death. We can only wait and hope.” “And what is the most we can hope for?”

  “To turn him, to destroy whatever flesh he walks and fling his spirit into the void. It would take him many counts of the moon to find his way back. If Gabriel were near, he could be bound, but we face him alone; I would feel the sword of Gabriel if it were close.

  “He comes for your Angelslayers, for all of them, every drop of their blood, their scion, their sons and daughters, all of them. For if they are no more, how can the prophecies of Enoch be fulfilled? Elyon sent the Daath, and all these years the angels did not realize why they walked the Earth. But now, the eye of Daath has been opened, and they know that the Arsayalalyur is here, on the Earth, that Elyon’s wrath has already crossed the heavens. They have owned this world long enough to deceive themselves. They may believe they can defy even Elyon, destroy His Arsayalalyur. They are as fooled of this illusion as mankind. Even if somehow they were able to destroy the Arsayalalyur, do they not understand that the wave of Aeon’s End would swallow the Earth into time as if the whole of this universe never was? I would think they would know that, but the Light Bearer has blinded them all by now. I only know because you taught me in a time when you knew all things.”

  Eryian tried to ignore the sounds of battle, to ignore that these were his own sons falling, but the feelings in him continued to build. They threatened to turn to tears of rage that Azazel was slaying them as if it were a feast.

  “I can stand no more,” he said, gripping the hilt of Righel’s sword. It burned, stinging, tasting his blood. Cassium seized his shoulder and pulled him his hand from the hilt. He was surprised to see a stream of blood briefly cross from his palm to the hilt. There was a time in memory he had used this sword, but never had it taken his blood to do so.

  “Your anger, Righel!” she said. “It is your weakness. Strike not in anger. If he is able to defeat you, all that you have done, laying down the mantle of your knowledge, returning in flesh to find your way back to heaven—if Azazel realizes that is what Righel has chosen, he will know the one weapon to use against you: that you strike in anger, that you let rage become what drives your blood. You could lose all if that happened. He would collect your soul like he has so many before you. You must remember. If you die, die valiantly. Do not strike in anger. Remember that, Eryian, Righel, remember it, keep my words close, for that is how he will try to destroy you.”

  “They are being slaughtered, Cassium. How can I stand here and not let my blade join with them?”

  “See your son,” she said, motioning toward Braemacht. Braemacht watched back, met Eryian’s eyes hearing his mother’s words. “He waits. You must do the same.”

  “She is right, Father. He will come to us; we will answer him when that happens. Until then, though blood boils, we wait.”

  “They have waited seven hundred years for your summoning; they die for you. It is their honor. They know what is at stake.”

  At a roar, Eryian looked up. Wobbly, knitted calfskin sailed overhead, moments before the phosphorus powers ate through to the naphtha. The bags exploded, raining fire. Axemen screamed. Eryian pulled Cassium hard against him, covering them both with his shield as fire pelted in streaks. One axeman staggered past them, swearing, wrapped in curls of flame. The black smoke twisted with a thick smell. A horse was screaming, ablaze. His head was cloven by a blow of Braemacht’s axe. Braemacht then turned to crouch near them as a stream of fire spilled from the face of his shield like water.

  “Lady, are you hurt?” he asked Cassium.

  “Nom Braemacht, I am unharmed.”

  Amathon stepped back from slaying, weary. He and a small knot of captains were surrounded by blood and bodies. The front had been lost; only the inner core still held. Knots of survivors were fighting, but they were being sectioned off and hewn down. The circle of death had grown smaller, but Amathon and his captains still held and behind them, Braemacht and the axemen of Righel were the last line. It was a line whose cost would be heavy to breach.

  Amathon looked up, noticing that it was snowing—lazy, drifting flakes that seemed almost otherworldly as they floated downward to melt into the blood-darkened earth.

  The Unchurians managed to clear the small ring of shields and leapt for him. He was still mounted, still visible, and they had sacrificed heavily to reach him. Amathon turned and slew with quick death thrusts. He warded off their attacks with the spiked face of his buckler while his sword opened flesh and dislodged heads.

  The Unchurians were savage and fought well, but none could get past his sword. He and a handful of brothers were slaying a
ll who reached them. And the cost of getting this close, of killing so many of Righel’s sons, had left the battlefield piled in bodies and awash in blood.

  Finally Amathon sensed one of power coming, not a common warrior, but one of their lords. He turned to see a dark rider making his way through the ranks. The rider was not human. The body was blackened bone, and wings arched from the shoulders, folded back. He cleaved flesh with a spiked morning star in a steady hum, shearing through shield, armor, killing the last of the footmen guarding Amathon’s inner core of captains. This was a minion—one of Azazel’s dark chosen.

  Amathon threw aside his shield and gripped his sword with both hands. He high-stepped forward and broke into a run against the Uttuku with a low growl in his throat.

  Beside Eryian, Cassium suddenly turned away, staggered as though she had been struck. Eryian was instantly at her side.

  She used his shoulder to steady herself, and took a breath.

  “It is Amathon,” she whispered.

  Braemacht stepped forward, watching. Cassium glanced at him. “Azazel sent a slayer for him,” she said. “Amathon has fallen.” Braemacht threw his head back and screamed. He shook his axe at the sky. Cassium stepped forward to touch his arm.

  “Now,” he pleaded, “let me go out there, my lady. I will find the slayer! Let me avenge my brother!”

  “No, Braemacht. Vengeance is not why we are here. We lay down our lives; it is not as other battles. We will not kill in anger. We will stand until the last, but our fight is valiant and cannot be otherwise, or the cause is lost us.”

  Braemacht paused, his jaw tight. He gazed skyward a moment, his hand wrapped tight about the axe. “Home had better be worth this day, good lady.”

  “It will be, Braemacht.”

  The giant looked at her, tears falling into his beard beneath the silver helm. “Home is the heart of heaven,” she added.