A door opened and Perklet looked up, wearily expecting to see fresh load of injured being carried in. Instead, the Seraph Uriel entered the room and surveyed the ranks of the wounded with a grim stare. He shifted his attention to the Green paladins tending them and finally settled on Perklet.
“Perklet Perkal, correct?” the angel asked as he crossed the room.
“Perky to most,” Perklet said with a tired nod. He missed the fleeting smile that touched the angel’s face.
“I would like to ask you a few questions about the healing you paladins perform,” Uriel said, “if you don’t mind.”
Perklet scanned the men nearest him and saw that all had been cared for, and the other Greens had the rest of the room well in-hand. He nodded and followed the Seraph into an adjoining room.
Uriel stopped abruptly in front of Perklet, and only an outthrust wing prevented the Green paladin from wearily plowing into the angel. Hoil was already seated at the only table in the room, and he stared up at Uriel with haunted eyes.
“Alanna de’Valderat,” Hoil said in a firm voice. “Tell me what happened to my wife. I’ve asked several angels since this morning, and the only ones who seem to know her name are all Archangels, and they button up the second I say it. No one will say a word, except everything keeps coming back to you, Uriel. You know something about her, and I figure she was one of yours. Please, tell me. Why hasn’t my wife come to see me?”
Perklet stared at Birch’s brother with rapt attention. He’d wondered why the man had come with them into Heaven, and here was his answer. Danner’s mother, Hoil’s wife, had supposedly died giving birth to her son. During the war, they had reasoned that she must have been an immortal angel, thus bequeathing Danner his remarkable abilities.
Of course, Perklet thought to himself. Of course he’d come here to see her again.
Uriel remained silent as he stared at Hoil.
Birch’s brother bowed his head and whispered, “Please.”
Finally, Uriel spoke.
“You must understand, Hoil,” Uriel said in a firm but sympathetic voice, “what Alanna did went against every rule and moral code we have regarding interaction between mortals and immortals. Not only did she fall in love with a mortal, worse, she bore his half-breed child.”
“Danner,” Hoil said needlessly.
Uriel nodded. “We hold nothing against you or your son, but his mother was held accountable for her actions. Such experimentation and bonding between mortals and immortals was banned centuries ago, and for good reason. The results are too dangerous and unpredictable for all involved. The mingling of our two kinds is considered a sin, and sin must be…” he trailed off.
“Punished,” Perklet said softly, filling in the gap.
Uriel shook his head sadly.
“Alanna knew what would have to happen to her when her actions were discovered,” Uriel said. “She genesed a mortal shell when she died so it could remain behind, and she returned to us voluntarily to face her judgment.”
Hoil closed his eyes. “And her judgment?”
“She was executed for her sin,” Uriel told him. He paused, then said in a flat voice, “And when the sentence was carried out, it was I who held the sword.”
Perklet expected Hoil to assault the angel, or at least rail at him verbally in an explosion of rage. Instead, the grief-stricken man simply looked up at Uriel through tear-filled eyes. Unimaginable pain was etched into Hoil’s flesh, and he looked as though he’d aged ten years in the space of a few seconds.
“Why?” he asked. “How could you?”
Uriel stepped closer and knelt down to clasp Hoil’s hands in his own. The Seraph’s wings flared behind him briefly so as not to brush the floor.
“Believe me when I say I was not myself, else I would never have slain Alanna,” Uriel said urgently. “She was a Dominion and one of my Archangels, a companion and comrade since before the days of the Great Schism. Centuries ago, we fought to put an end to the last of such experiments on mortal-immortal bonding, and it was finally ruled a sin and therefore beyond any angel’s judgment or independent action.
“At her trial, Alanna presented no defense, no explanation for her actions,” Uriel continued anxiously. “She simply told us she’d done what she felt she’d had to do, and that she was prepared to face the consequences. I’ve never seen such calm acceptance and courage before, but there could be only one outcome from a trial for such an offense. Already, Maya’s influence had spread throughout Heaven, and while I thought I was immune, I realized too late that even I had succumbed to her pervasive will.”
Uriel gripped Hoil’s hands tightly.
“She died because I was blinded by my own self-assurance. When the order came to execute Alanna, I didn’t hesitate to obey.” Uriel shuddered at the memory playing out in his mind. “It wasn’t until the instant my blade struck her throat that I recognized the true sin being committed, and from that moment on, I have remained ever-vigilant against Maya’s influence. It was because of your wife’s sacrifice that I was given the strength to resist Maya. Without that, I would have retained the mantle of the Angel of Death and gone to Lokka in Mikal’s stead. He fought and was selective, but had I remained inured to Maya’s will, I would have wreaked more havoc than you can imagine on the mortal realm, all in the name of Maya’s misguided dreams of perfection. Without Alanna’s sacrifice, Kaelus might now be slain and this war over with us the conquered.
“That is the only comfort I take from amidst the horror of my actions,” Uriel said with quiet dignity. He stood slowly and stared down at Hoil. “It is all I can offer you, Hoil.”
Uriel left the room quietly, and Perklet was left behind with a bereaved Hoil. The Green paladin stared at the door where Uriel had left and tried to grasp the implications of what he’d just heard. He heard muffled voices outside, but he couldn’t make out any of the words.
“Leave me, Perky,” Hoil whispered. “Just leave me alone.”
“As you wish,” Perklet said quietly, then left back through the door toward the makeshift infirmary. There was nothing he could do for Hoil, but there were plenty of physical injuries left that Perklet could do something about.
Chapter 27
The war in Heaven was unlike any other in history or any yet to come. Build a wall, and the enemy grows wings to fly over it. Kill a thousand, and a million take their place. Watch a friend die, and wait for his soul to fight on beside you.
- Danner de’Valderat,
“Collected Accounts from the Pandemonium War”
- 1 -
Danner clung to the rope and fought down the panic they all faced every time they utilized Garnet’s stroke of transportation genius. Crystal-clear liquid surrounded him and glowed with a soft luminescence, wrapping him in a warm cocoon of light. The beautiful sight brought him no comfort, and was in fact the source of his anxiety.
No matter how many times you tell yourself you don’t actually need to breathe in Heaven, your body never quite gets the idea, he thought wryly to himself.
Shortly before their first engagement in Heaven, Garnet had conceived the idea of using the rivers of Heaven as a means of transportation. He reasoned that the overwhelming aura of the rivers might mask the presence of troops, and unfortunately – from Danner’s point of view – he was correct. Kaelus had confirmed that even from a few feet away, he couldn’t detect the presence of any but the most powerful of angels.
That answered the question of immortals using them, and the blessed dead were just as easy to test. Apparently a few decades of being dead was enough to eliminate the instinct to breathe, and all those dead more than a century or so no longer even simulated the experience. The problems began when Garnet wanted to transport still-living, mortal warriors using the rivers. The instinct to breathe in was overwhelming, and keeping a living man underwater for any length of time tended to unhinge his senses for the first few attempts.
After some practice, Shadow Company had begun using the technique re
gularly to slip past enemy lines and attack from unexpected directions. Garnet liked the added effect that they seemed to just disappear without their pursuers ever figuring out how – another lesson learned from Gerard. Using angels to aerially insert and extract troops sounded like a good idea, but to avoid being detected by the demons, the angels had to fly extra high to avoid patrols and set them down at too great a distance to be truly effective.
Thus, Garnet’s watery roads saw almost daily use by units in the Heavenly Host who traveled near the demonic army. It would only be a matter of time before the demons figured out how the rivers were being used against them, so they were making the most of it while they had the chance.
For transporting mortals, Flasch had suggested using angels to drag long ropes behind them, to which the living warriors could then cling. As long as there were no sharp turns in the river’s course (and with Mikal redirecting rivers to suit their needs this was never a problem), it worked surprisingly well. The angels literally flew through the water and moved them about much more quickly than they ever could have done on their own.
Now they were using the waters of the Philion to insert near the main body of the demon army on what any normal commander would deem a suicide mission. Gerard, Kaelus, and Mikal, however, had used a different term.
“It’s damn near impossible and dangerous as cleaning a faerer’s teeth with its own tail, but damn it, it’s worth the risk to kill that mutated piece of rat vomit.”
Gerard at his most polite.
The target: Arthryx the Bender, the most diabolically clever of the demons at warping the unliving flesh of the damned to create monstrosities. Arthryx was responsible for the twisted creatures they faced on a daily basis, monsters that had once been the souls of the dead condemned to Hell. He created nightmares by melting the flesh of the damned and twisting them into whatever shapes his demented imagination could conjure.
Arthryx had long been a target of the Heavenly Hosts, but a recent shift in tactics by the demons had made his elimination that much more critical. Danner still shuddered at the mental picture conjured up by the description given by the only survivor from an ambush two weeks past. The men who’d died had yet to be located among the ranks of the blessed dead, so his was the only account available.
“They left a broken angel on the verge of death to act as bait, and when we were all there, the ground just split open under us,” reported the Red paladin who’d escaped. “We were told the demons couldn’t stand to be wrapped up in the stuff of Heaven, that’s why they could never duplicate the tactics we used against them. They found a way around it, though. Dozens of demons and those twisted creatures came pouring out of little caverns in the ground.
“I looked into one and, dear God help me, the walls of the holes were made of the flesh of the damned, all melted together and fashioned like a giant bubble. Arms and legs, eyes and mouths, God save them, all melted together! The demons tore through it like paper, and I could hear those mouths screaming in pain.”
It was hoped that with Arthryx out of the way, such flesh-made caverns would no longer be available to the demons, to say nothing of future monstrosities he might concoct. Hundreds had volunteered to make the strike, but there was really only one unit capable of such a strike, and everyone knew it.
Which is how I ended up clinging to this damn rope trying to convince my lungs that they’re really not on fire and about to explode from lack of air, Danner thought.
“Quit complaining, we’re almost there,” Brican kythed to Danner. “Recite some of your training lessons on courage. That seems to be helping the others, for some reason.”
Danner’s lips moved slightly as he recited some of the more memorable lessons in his head. After a few moments, the burning in his chest had subsided, either from a lessening of his fear or simply because he wasn’t thinking about it.
“See? What’d I tell you?”
“Stuff it, Brican,” Danner replied with humor in his mental voice. “What’s our ETA?”
“Two minutes. Passing the word now.”
Danner’s pulse quickened with fear and anticipation, and his arms tingled with suppressed adrenaline. When the mental command came to release, he let go and felt the drag of water as the rope sped past beneath him. The tail end of rope whipped about and nearly clouted him on the head, and then it was gone. Theirs was the rear-most group, so Danner didn’t have to worry about other angels tearing past.
“Relay from Garnet. Blue and Green take point,” Caret sent to Danner. “Red and Violet will follow, Yellow and Orange are last. We’re still in the tent.”
“In the tent” meant they were still operating according to the plans laid while safe and secure in the command tent planning the mission. Every military commander knew the best of plans was only good right up until the moment the mission actually started, if even that long. Gerard and Garnet had both recently adopted the phrase, which they’d borrowed from a general who’d died centuries before. Of course, since the general was on-hand in Heaven as one of the blessed dead helping with Gerard’s training group, they had it straight from the source.[25]
Danner skimmed the bottom of the river and approached the bank closest to the enemy encampment, digging his hands into the spongy ground as he clawed his way forward. The weight of his leather armor, while nowhere near as heavy as his platemail, was nevertheless enough to prevent his floating upward.
Trebor swam at his side. The dead denarae paladin had accompanied them on a few missions when he wasn’t needed elsewhere. He was their liaison with various command elements, but Trebor still liked to “get his hands dirty” when circumstances permitted. He usually accompanied Danner’s platoon, and he willingly accepted a secondary role in the company. They were all glad to have him around whenever possible.
The camp of Arthryx and his entourage had not moved in over a week and was well behind the front lines of the war. Their best intelligence indicated the demons had light security – they still counted on their strength in numbers in all areas of war – and that they still hadn’t caught on to the tactic of using the rivers to bypass enemy patrols and sentries.
There was every likelihood, then, that their insertion had gone unnoticed and would provide the easiest access to their target.
“Blue go,” Caret relayed directly to Danner, who replied with his own set of orders to his platoon. Denarae peeked carefully out of the river and targeted the few sentries who stood lazily on guard. The guards’ fields of view were estimated and wherever they found gaps, bowmen emerged there and brought the sentry creatures down quickly and quietly with a few well-placed arrows.
The ice-tipped arrows Dem had fashioned, while generally effective, were unfortunately useless in a situation such as this, a limitation of the aquatic insertion. Despite the tendency of things to maintain a given state and temperature in Heaven,[26] the frozen arrowheads reverted to their liquid state when immersed in the rivers, just as normal ice would, forcing Shadow Company to rely on arrows marked with the Tricrus when undertaking operations that involved Heaven’s waterways. They were less effective than the ice arrows against demons, but they were still lethally efficient against the damned.
“Caret, take your squad out, I’ll follow on your right,” Danner ordered.
Soundlessly, Danner’s platoon slipped from the river in two squads and crept toward the enemy camp. The cloud-like surface had taken on a sooty gray color as the taint of the demons’ presence slowly infected the very ground of Heaven. The constantly overcast sky had also darkened to a shadowy haze, which gave the air a sickly, death-like feeling. Even as the sight left Danner nauseous, he was thankful for the natural camouflage it provided for the gray-skinned denarae. Danner and the other humans had darkened their skin so they wouldn’t stand out.
There was little in the way of cover between the river and the main camp, but they used the irregular cloud surface to their advantage as they spread out slowly toward the camp. Danner nearly slipped on a slick patch
of ground, and when he glanced down he stopped and stared in wonder. Already crouched low, he reached out and fingered a small patch of thin, greasy gray strands of some fiber sticking out of the ground.
Grass? He wondered silently. He looked at Trebor, who shrugged. The substance left an oily, unclean feeling on his fingers, so he quickly tore off a few pieces and stuffed them in a pouch at his side. He spared one final glance for the strange sight, then hurried forward to his position.
When Caret reported his squad was in place, Danner ran a quick check with Brican and his platoon, then reported to Garnet that all was clear.
Even his trained eye missed most of the denarae from Red and Violet as they emerged from the river and followed the directions of their guides. Danner nearly jumped when Flasch tapped him on the shoulder. The Violet paladin flashed a set of white teeth at him, then narrowed his eyes and turned his attention back to their objective.
Ahead of them, hundreds of black-steel cauldrons large enough to hold six men each were set in orderly rows on platforms made of steel and stone. It was in these steel chambers that Arthryx worked the most complicated and grotesque of his transformations, and they were the secondary objective of the day’s mission.
Danner looked at the sturdy supports and devoutly wished he had a sack filled with Faldergash’s explosives. Oh, the damage he could wreak with a few of his gnomish friend’s toys! Unfortunately, the explosives Faldergash had packed for Danner didn’t react well to the Heavenly water for some reason – luckily, rather than setting them off, it merely nullified the bomb’s potency, else their original test might have ended in disaster rather than just disappointment. They were still working on a water-tight solution to the problem.
Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) Page 37
