The Shivered Sky

by Matt Dinniman

“Colonel, I need your help,” Tamael said to Yehppael. When he didn't answer immediately, she turned in surprise. Gone. She pinged him, and her heart leapt when he was located on the surface. But it was soon replaced with anger.

  The humans.

  “Damn it, Yehppael,” she said. “I order you to fall into formation.”

  Ahead, they came onto the immense army of Dahhak. Battle cries from both sides pierced. The Dahhak sounded like hunting birds of prey, while the angels’ lower cry was that of an air train. The battle smell from both sides was tangible, not mixing well with each other, almost dizzying. The two parties clashed, the angels’ superior weapons tearing up the demons—the demons’ numbers overwhelming.

  Tamael swung her weapon up like a club into the face of a diving Dahhak. It screamed, spiraling down. A pack of shrieking demons dropped on her. She shot one at point blank, and its blood exploded over her visor, hot on her chin, bitter in her mouth.

  “Yehppael,” she cried again. “Please. I need you here.” The continuous blasts burned her back. Her armor couldn't take much more.

  Then, a reprieve.

  A wide arch of the True Light cut through them. She felt the wonderful warmth entering her, filling her with strength. The Dahhak simply disappeared, their weapons and armor dropping. The disciplined demons panicked. They tore at each other to get away.

  When the humans had told their tale earlier, she had been enraptured by the part about the Light cutting through the demons, eradicating them completely. And even though she knew this is what the True Light did, part of her still hadn't believed it. It seemed too easy. It was beautiful in a way. Clean. Perfect.

  She turned to search for Yehppael and the humans. The visor located them, but they were moving—running. Unprotected through the field. One of them was thrown over Yehppael's shoulder.

  Below, the ground that had seemed to momentarily settle, erupted in an explosion of rock and dirt. Two claws emerged, each one twice the size of a Foray. Then its black, eyeless head appeared.

  The six-legged monstrosity extracted itself from the hole in the ground. It pounded on the unexploded missiles with its massive feet, sending the already uprooted rock flying with each stomp.

  The Light arced into the sky like a spotlight, and Dahhak and Pazuzu fled madly. The power, the sheer magnitude of the weapon was still sinking in. Hitomi aimed the light weapon at the giant monster, but it had no effect.

  “To the rally point,” she ordered.

  She didn't follow her own troops. Before she could talk herself out of it, she dove over the monstrosity, which was still stomping about, and toward the humans and Yehppael. She picked four angels—all true Powers—and had them accompany her.

  “Yehppael, we're coming in,” she said. “We're getting them out of here.”

  * * * *

  Within Cibola, the Overseer watched the heated battle intently on several screens. The helmet-mounted cameras were scattered amongst officers within the regiments.

  With one meaty hand, he stroked the head of a child human slave intently milking a pleasure node. With the other he constantly changed the angle of display, trying desperately to get the feel of the battle. He yelled at his assistant, Ko, to locate better cameras. The fool Geyrun apologized profusely. There simply weren't better shots available. The death of an angel was too anticlimactic for his tastes, but their screams of pain were a suitable consolation. He almost wished he was there. Almost.

  The accidental overdose, and subsequent death, of two of the Burrowers had in fact turned out for the best. The angels had focused their weaponry on the flying machines—machines designed to withstand the turbulent storms of his homeworld. They hadn't even managed to inconvenience the pilots.

  The one remaining Burrower had been released far from the base, and the radio flares had been fired off at the ground above. As predicted, the creature dug deep to flee the signals, but was stopped at the ice core. It then homed in on the flares, attempting to destroy them. It had ripped through the base. The results were spectacular. Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

  He watched with joy as the angels fled the base. It was almost unfair.

  “Ko, I need a flagon of extract,” he bellowed down to his assistant. “I must celebrate.” But the fool's eyes were glued to the screens.

  “Ko,” he barked. His groveling assistant normally jumped at his commands. His last two Geyrun personal assistants had to be executed because they were too slow. And Ko knew this. “Ko!”

  “The screens, My Lord,” Ko said with a nervous titter. “Look.”

  It only took a moment to register why a whole regiment was suddenly decimated. He watched in horrified fascination as the True Light annihilated his elaborate battle plan.

  “What was that? ” he roared.

  “That would be a periscepter, My Lord,” Ko said.

  The periscepters. They were here. He was astonished. They weren't just an illusion as the idiot Charun had suggested.

  He had pulled his hands into tight fists. In one hand, the display controller had been crushed. In the other, the human.

  “Call a meeting,” he roared, wiping his hand on his divan. “I want all my commanders here.” He drove his heel into the ground, and an angry crack spiderwebbed around the indentation. Ko giggled. They were soon going to have to evacuate this headquarters too. Couldn't these worthless angels build anything right?

  A communication window popped up. It was the grande-commander, Pooljab. He was a Dahhak. One of the few the Overseer considered competent.

  “What is it?” the Overseer growled. “I'm busy.”

  “I have someone here who needs to speak with you.”

  He grunted.

  “His name is Hekka, a member of the Tempest Squadron you sent out earlier with the Charun.” A younger Dahhak appeared on the screen. His eyes were averted, and he was deep in one of the inane Dahhak prayers.

  “I thought they were all dead.”

  “That,” Commander Pooljab said, “is why we need to speak.”

  * * * *

  Dave screamed as two powerful arms wrapped around him from behind. He tried to twist away as his feet lifted from the ground. “Don't struggle, or I might lose grip,” his captor whispered in his ear. An angel.

  “What're you doing?” he cried.

  “Removing you from harm,” the angel said. Beside him, the others flew in much the same manner. Only Gramm—who had woken up—still struggled, and the angel holding him looked irritated enough to knock him out again.

  A few bolts of fire streaked by them, but the demons were mostly in retreat. Below, the horror dug a new hole, dirt and rock showering hundreds of feet into the air. Seconds later the giant thing was gone, just as quickly as it came.

  Hitomi shone her light at the retreating armies. Their armor and weapons tumbled forward like a badly thrown football, wobbling, then arcing down to the fields.

  Without warning, a flight of seven or eight of the scorpion men shot up at them from below. “Watch out,” Dave cried as round balls of fire streaked up toward them. The angel holding him dove to the left just as the fire ripped past, a moment later followed by the howling demons, leaving a wake that reeked of dead flesh and pestilence. It sat thick in his mouth and throat, and he gagged.

  Hitomi and Indigo both shot at them, along with Yehppael and that red-haired angel, Colonel Tamael, but the demons all split in different directions. Only a few were captured by the light. The rest spread, then dove.

  The angel had to twist and pirouette away. Dave felt the shock of a blast against the angel's back and its “Hmmph” of surprise. Blue fire reached around both sides of the armor, licking his skin, giving him a momentary sensation of intense pain. The angel cursed, then banked away again.

  A scorpion screamed toward them, raking a claw across the chin of the angel. A moment later, the thing's head was blown off by Colonel Tamael. After another shot by Yehppael, they were all slain. Safe for the moment.

  “Shit, that was close,” D
ave muttered, still trembling and coughing. He was breathless, his heart thrashing. An arm slipped away, and Dave felt the grip on him weaken, as if he was about to be dropped. He looked up, and he cried aloud. The skin around the wound on the angel's chin boiled like cheese in the microwave. The angel screamed, the wound spreading down his neck, under the collar. His skin sloughed off, pouring down the outside of his armor.

  Then the angel simply disappeared. His armor was still there, the massive gun still strapped to the back as it sailed over Dave's head, still continuing the forward motion. But the angel was gone.

  Dave plummeted like a rock. He screamed, waving his arms.

  Yehppael swooped in, knocking the breath out of him. Dave felt like he had hit a brick wall. But he was alive.

  “Thanks,” he wheezed.

  They headed back toward the forest. Soon, they were alone. Even the massive demon transports had taken off and returned home in the midst of the bustle.

  He noticed Hitomi's eyes were clenched shut, yet tears were still finding a path down her face. They spread like a drizzle as she raised her head against the wind of their flight. He did not envy her. She was so small, so gentle. Beautiful, too.

  “We're going the wrong way,” Indigo said, raising her voice enough to be heard over the rushing air. “We need to go to the Spire of Jhunayn. It's in the city.”

  Tamael grunted. “We know where the Spire is. You're not going there anytime soon. Even your astounding luck wouldn't save you then.”

  “Why not? What's there?” Indigo asked.

  They reached the trees. Far to the left, some still smoldered from their earlier encounter with the demons. It seemed like ages ago. Though they weren't above the trees, they were high enough that they were free of the thick underbrush, but they had to zoom around the broad trunks. Like a field of reeds sticking out of murky water.

  “What do you think is there?” Yehppael asked.

  Indigo shook her head. “I don't know.”

  “It's where the Unraveler told us to go,” Gramm said. After the attack by the scorpion men, he had stopped resisting.

  Tamael shook her head in apparent disbelief.

  “Be wary of creatures wandering the forest,” she said. “It is ripe not only with demons, but others with motivations that only serve them.”

  “Still, that's where we need to go,” Indigo said.

  “You're our wards now,” Tamael said. “I was to let you go, but that was before I fully understood what you're capable of. We will offer you protection.”

  “We can't be held like prisoners,” Indigo said.

  Colonel Tamael didn't answer. They flew in silence. This was a part of the forest they hadn't seen before. The trees were getting smaller and denser. The angels lowered their flight slightly, now only a hundred feet off the ground. As a result, they had to do some quick maneuvering. Dave felt as if he was on a roller coaster, his stomach rumbling uneasily at some of the quick turns and dives. He dared not look forward. Only below.

  Yehppael surprised Dave by speaking. “It is my opinion we should dispatch a team to the outskirts and allow the humans to continue their journey unfettered.”

  Tamael whirled around to look at him. Her mouth was turned down. She stopped in midair. They all jerked around to come to a floating circle. Far below, a pack of lion-sized creatures gazed up at them, their eyes an unnatural purple.

  “No we shall not, Colonel,” Tamael said.

  They stared at each other. Dave had to twist around to see what was happening. They were silently communicating somehow. While their helmets covered their eyes, Dave could tell from the pained expressions on the lower halves of their faces that they were having an intense argument. The other three angels looked extremely uncomfortable.

  A single tear traced a path down Tamael's cheek.

  “I'm going to lose you,” she said.

  Yehppael moved forward, placing his free hand on her shoulder. A flowery scent passed between the two angels. Dave nervously clung to his arm. He imagined the creatures below licking their lips.

  “No,” Yehppael said. “I will return. I swear it on His throne.”

  Tamael nodded. “The two male humans shall continue toward your destination. The females shall stay here with us.”

  “Absolutely not,” Indigo said. “We are not going to be separated.”

  “You don't have a choice,” she said. She grabbed Hitomi from the angel holding her, turned to the one clutching Indigo and said, “Let us continue.” And just like that, they were gone, off like ghosts in the night.

  “Indigo!” Gramm screamed. A nesting of crow-sized birds scattered from a nearby tree, filling the air with their screeches.

  She answered, but her call was lost in the cacophony.

  Dave was brusquely shoved into the arms of the angel that had been holding Hitomi. The chest of his armor still smelled of her. Sweet, like baby oil. I'm never going to see her again, he thought.

  “Hold the humans close to your chests, and the cloaking should conceal them also,” Yehppael said.

  “I don't like this,” the angel growled. “We're taking them to the outskirts of Cibola? For what? It's suicide. If not for us, for them.”

  “Maybe we should discuss this,” Dave said. Yehppael glared at him. “We're the only two that don't know how to use the periscepters. If this place is so close to the bad guys, we're dead.”

  Yehppael pulled one of Dave's periscepters from the sheath on his belt and shoved it into his hand. “Then you better start practicing.”

  Dave and Gramm exchanged looks of terror. They had been five, then four, and now two. And he had no influence over anything that was happening. He felt like the little boy in his dreams. Lost. Afraid. Out of control. Things were happening too fast. And like his dreams, he feared this would have a similar, but real, ending.

  Dear God, he prayed. Dear God.

  * * * *

  Levi cautiously rolled onto his back, felt something mechanical crunch, and groaned as a fresh wave of pain swept over him.

  “Zane?” he called. He was still wearing his helmet, but it was offline. Then he remembered. The desperate, high-speed flight from the temple. Fire raining upon them. Zane was dead. I should be too.

  He was almost directly below the floating Dahhak temple. It still smoldered from the attack. Rocks occasionally fell from the floating, upside-down mountain. They crashed around him like giant hailstones. He was in immediate danger of being crushed by one. The floating temple was weeping.

  He could still smell the death of the temple, taste it in his mouth. I have to get back to base. He reached up to untwist the control panel from the side of his helmet, but his hand found nothing, only his ear. He was cut off from communication.

  His weapon was gone. And none of his local systems worked, like his cloaking. He laughed. Things were getting better by the moment.

  * * * *

  “This can't be it!” Tamael said, surveying the ragtag group. “Surely more are coming.” Just about six hundred angels had made it, only twelve of them true Powers—not counting the two with Yehppael. Half of them were injured in one manner or another. Most huddled in circles, quietly mourning. As she watched, an angel gasped and burned away. Another wept. She felt like doing the same.

  Is this it? Are we the only angels left?

  A slight breeze rustled through the forest. She felt the fine grains of sand whip past her face—on their way to the final resting place of all angels. The infinite beach of death. A wave of sadness swept through her. So many brothers and sisters lost.

  She dropped the human on the ground. She rolled away with a humph then scurried over to huddle with her companion amongst the acid glares of the angels.

  “What now?” a soldier asked.

  She unsnapped her helmet and peeled it off. The inside was still thick with Yehppael's scent, and she could take it no more. This part of the forest was darker even than some of the passages of their cave. She felt odd being here, so small. If thei
r band of soldiers had been insubstantial before, then they were truly pitiful now.

  “I don't know,” she wanted to say. She wanted to turn to Yehppael for his silent guidance, or direct the question to the wise Hashmallim. But she couldn't. Not anymore. So instead she said nothing.

  A long time passed. Tamael waited, hoping more angels would come, but none did. How could this have happened? she wondered as she watched the angels huddle like children. Each of them was the face of defeat. I have to say something.

  She spoke, loudly enough so everyone would hear. “Our numbers may be decimated.” The angels snapped to attention and stood tall at the sound of their leader's voice. “And we may not comprise the most powerful force. But I am proud to stand before you, my brothers and sisters. Proud to be an angel—even in this, our darkest moments since the Fall.

  “Standing before me are the most brilliant minds I have ever had the honor of knowing. Who else could've taken a simple outpost and turned it to a military base using only the crushed remnants of a battle lost?

  “This isn't the first time we have fallen so hard that it would seem impossible to rise again. Our numbers have been weakened, but as long as life flows through me, I shall fight against the demons until I am nothing but a grain of dust. To do anything else would be an insult to those who've given everything.” From the corner of her eye she saw one of the angels who had slain the Hashmallim. Verdan was his name. He nodded fervently. Damn you, she thought.

  She turned her head slightly to stare directly at the angel. He held her gaze. “Past mistakes will be forgiven,” she continued. “But not forgotten. For we must learn from them if we hope to be successful in our quest.”

  “What is our quest, Colonel?” Verdan asked.

  She turned to the humans. Both had fallen asleep. Past mistakes will be forgiven.

  “At this very moment we stand before a split in the path of history. There are two ways to go. One, the easy path, a path which leads toward relative safety. And it comes at the heavy price of ignominy on our honor.

  “The other path isn't much better, I fear. Our souls will remain unburdened, except with the knowledge we are heading toward almost certain death. As your leader, I can't allow myself to accept that. Not yet.