He looked toward where Shadow Company was preparing and saw Danner securing the last of several large bundles to his gnomish buggy. Gerard cast out a thought to contact the first denarae he saw.
“Trebor, relay to Danner, just what the Hell does he think he’s doing with that thing?”
A moment later, the denarae kythed back, “Says he wants it for all the traveling we’ll be doing, especially with its special cargo. Better to have it and not need it and all that.”
“I think he’s an idiot, but if Garnet approved it, I’ll not gainsay him,” Gerard thought grudgingly.
“Uriel, are the Archangels ready?” Gerard called to the Seraph, who raised an arm in confirmation. “Angels, take your positions!” he cried.
Three hundred angels – none of them Archangels – lined up behind Gerard’s force of paladins and firmly embraced the holy warriors. A Dominion named Doriel took his place behind Gerard and wrapped his arms under the Red paladin’s armpits, holding him securely.
“Halo Company, lift off!” Gerard ordered. “Uriel, please take command of the angels transporting Shadow Company,” he thought, knowing the Seraph would pick up a thought directed his way. Gerard’s experience commanding Shadow Company made communicating mentally with angels an easy transition to grasp and utilize.
“Acknowledged, Gerard,” the Archangel commander replied.
Behind Halo Company, a flight of another hundred and fifty or so assorted angels transported Shadow Company. Each angel held two denarae, one in his arms and another clinging carefully to his back so as not to obstruct the angel’s wings. None of them were happy with the arrangement, but they didn’t have enough angels to spare from the front lines just to transport the denarae more comfortably, and Halo Company needed their one-to-one ratio to operate properly. Of course, the angel carrying Danner’s buggy was something of a luxury, but Gerard silently admitted it would probably be useful to have along; not for this operation, but for the one to follow.
Within moments, the flight of angels had pierced the ever-present cloud cover overhead and soared within the cumulous cushion. Doriel had assured him they could still see well enough through the cloudy mist, and Gerard had never had cause to question the Dominion’s assertion. They flew higher and higher into the layer of clouds – by the time they reached the demons’ front lines, they had to have enough distance between them and the ground that the demons’ aerial patrols wouldn’t detect the angels soaring overhead. The most sensitive angels were flying point ahead of the flight, far enough they could pinpoint any demons and send warning before the larger group could be detected. Short of an insanely bad stroke of luck, even if the scouts were sensed, they would appear to be loners and not the advance of a larger force higher up.
“How long will it take us to reach the camp, Doriel?” Gerard asked.
“Impossible to say,” the angel replied. “Uriel is compressing the time and distance far better than I can, and the best I could manage would be a day and a half at maximum speed. Uriel will most likely manage it within a few hours.”
“Good thing you boys don’t get tired,” Gerard grumbled. “Handled all the logistics just fine, but I never thought I’d have to worry about boredom.”
“Want to hear a joke?” the Dominion asked after a few minutes’ silence.
“Sure,” Gerard replied. A joke-telling angel? What’s next, a demon suffering from depression?
“How many gnomes does it take to create something that works right the first time?”
“How many?”
“We don’t know. God can’t count that high, and the world’s still waiting for it to happen once.”
Gerard laughed appreciatively. “Alright, Doriel, how’s this one for you – how many Dominion angels are there in Heaven?”
“I assume you don’t want an actual answer.”
“Shut up and play along,” Gerard growled. It seemed humor would take some doing with certain angels. Still, this was an improvement over the generally subdued Powers.
“Very well. How many?”
“I’m not sure, but I’ve met at least three of Dem.”
Doriel laughed heartily.
The Dominion told Gerard a string of jokes he’d collected over the eons, and only half of them were too obscure for the dead paladin to understand. Gradually, they both stopped talking and cruised in a silence broken only by the beating of the angel’s four moss-colored wings. As they crossed into the lands held by the demons, the sky grew dark and stormy, and the cloud cover roiled about them like a tempest seconds away from releasing its torrential wrath. The light from Doriel’s wings made the dark, cloudy air glow with a verdant luminescence, and Gerard thought of it as a sort of beacon for the others to follow.
With no frame of reference for time or distance, Gerard had no idea how long they were airborne before Doriel announced they had reached their destination.
“All of the angels are coordinated?” Gerard asked.
“Ready for your orders,” Doriel replied. “We arrive in T-minus one minute.”
“Listen in for my command, and get ready to unleash Hell… well, Heaven, I should say.”
Doriel chuckled. Gerard ticked off the seconds in his head, counting down.
“Halo Company, launch!” Gerard cried, and Doriel passed the word back through the angels under his command even as he let go of Gerard and allowed the Red paladin to plummet toward the distant ground.
Around Gerard, paladins from every Facet sped head-first through the stormy fog, using their hands and feet as well as their cloaks to make corrections to their courses and avoid collisions. Every paladin received ample training in the use of their cloaks and was comfortable falling through the air in a slow, controlled descent, but what made this unit different was their use of what the gnomes called a HALO.
High Altitude, Low Opening.
Gnomes used parachutes for safety while working in their flying machines,[34] and years ago Gerard had heard mention of this technique among the more adventurous of gnomish youths. The burning question among gnomish daredevils was just how high they could fly and how close could they get to the ground and still open their parachutes safely.
Paladins had an advantage because of their superior control using their cloaks, and Gerard intended to exploit that to its fullest. They knew there would be clouds of demons flying overhead to sense and intercept any angelic incursions, but the demons would be unable to detect the fleet of paladins aimed at the heart of their camp. They would pierce the defensive barrier and be on the ground before anyone could react. It was an extreme tactic at best, but the camp was small enough that with Shadow Company’s presence and some aerial support from the angels – once the paladins had broken through and detection was a moot point – Gerard thought it just might be feasible.
Even though Heaven had no proper wind, Gerard felt the air roar past him, and he was glad he’d put so much time into practicing this maneuver and correcting all the mishaps that arose. On their first drop, half the paladins had lost their helmets when they were ripped from their heads partway down. Now their helmets were designed to stay on better. They’d also learned not to hold their weapons while moving at high speeds for the same reason. Shields were strapped tightly against their chests, which made maneuvering more difficult, but none of the paladins who used shields was willing to leave the protection behind.
The little gear the paladins carried was strapped to their legs in specially designed packs that could be quickly shed upon landing if needed and repacked later. Several designs had been tested and scrapped because they were too cumbersome for close-quarters combat, but a few paladins still had customized theirs to fit specific gear rigs.
A Blue paladin started to overtake Gerard, and he motioned for the other paladin to fall back. This was the first combat test of Halo Company and, true to his leadership style, Gerard asked no one to go where he himself had not gone first – even if he only beat them there by a second.
Then they were
through the dark cloud cover, and Gerard saw the first lines of demons hovering in the air before him. Their ranks were spread thin and they moved lazily, for they fully expected to feel the approach of any enemies long before they became visible.
“Punch through!” Gerard roared needlessly. “Doriel, unleash the storm!”
As the paladins pierced the first layers of demons, only a few actually collided with the airborne monsters, and their momentum was sufficient that the demons were more often than not snapped in half by the impact. The paladins did their best to take the assault on their shoulders and other armored body parts, but Gerard watched as one man crash face-first into a bloodhawk and saw his neck snap back at an impossible angle. Fortunately, it was one of the blessed dead, so the paladin “survived” the encounter. It took more than a broken neck to destroy a dead man’s soul.
Gerard reached the next layer of demons, which was composed mostly of gremlins and a few balrogs to guide their lesser cousins. Behind him, even over the rushing air, he heard the screams as a veritable deluge of angelic arrows rained down from the clouds and tore through the ranks of the demons in their wake. The angels above unleashed volley after volley of heavenly arrows, which quickly overtook Gerard’s company and decimated the remaining ranks of airborne demons.
At a specific command from the angels above, the paladins of Halo Company broke up and opened a wide hole at the center, through which a pillar of angelic fire poured onto the demons below. A second command was passed, and the paladins reformed into a spear that soared through the resulting gap. Another volley of arrows surrounded them, widening the bubble of safety in the air and finally giving Gerard a full view of their intended landing site.
A large pen had been erected in which he could see at least fifty bodies crowded against the fence nearest a bonfire of some sort. The bonfire was almost directly beneath Gerard, and he knew all too-well what the demons were most likely burning. He just hoped it wasn’t Birch.
Gerard quickly sent mental orders back to Doriel, who then relayed them via kything to the angels in his command and the paladins plummeting behind Gerard. The Red paladin commander veered toward the bonfire and knew the others would be following suit as per his orders.
The storm of arrows reached the ground and demons fell screaming to the ground as they were caught completely off-guard by the sudden attack. The next volley had already reached the ground before Gerard gave the signal to slow their descent, and with hard-trained discipline and precision, the paladins pulled out of their suicidal plummets a mere fifty feet from the ground. Paladins had a distinct advantage over gnomish daredevils: their blessed cloaks allowed them to decelerate more quickly, with more control, and without the jarring shock inherent in deploying a parachute, enabling them to open lower and more safely than any other method of aerial insertion.
Gerard’s descent slowed quickly, and he landed on the ground with only minimal pain to his already dead body. He rolled to absorb the last of the impact, then sprang to his feet and drew his sword in one rapid motion. Gerard cut a dumbstruck balrog in half and decapitated a drolkul before the first demons made a move against any of the paladins landing in their midst. Following Gerard’s orders, the holy warriors landed in a group around the still-burning stake and immediately formed a defensive circle around the unknown victim.
“For God and for man!” Gerard cried out, and the paladins around him answered in one thunderous voice, “For life!” as they pressed their advantage on the confused demons. More of Halo Company landed in the protected circle every second, and their defensive lines thickened and spread with the reinforcements. Demons died as they tripped over their fellows trying to back away from the unexpected threat, while others fell when they foolishly tried to single-handedly attack the circle of implacable paladins.
Just as the demons were beginning to regroup and attack with some semblance of order, another volley of arrows heralded the arrival of Shadow Company. The denarae fell more slowly than Halo Company and many were still carried by angels or by a fellow denarae wearing the cloaks they had appropriated from the Prism under Gerard. They were accompanied by Uriel’s Archangels to provide air support against the demons still flying above. Garnet landed his company some distance away from Gerard’s, and the two units mercilessly ground the demons between them.
A platoon of denarae landed in the fenced-in area, and Gerard recognized Flasch leading his men in to protect the captives. Doriel led his angels in immediately behind the Archangels and raked the demons with a point-blank volley of arrows that left over a hundred demons writhing on the ground or collapsing into piles of demonic ash.
Gerard made a quick evaluation of the battle and grinned fiercely. He raised his sword overhead and led a charge against the thickest pocket of demons. Overhead, the Archangels cried, “An’Deios! An’Uriel!” as they followed Gerard into the heat of battle.
- 2 -
Azazel watched in mounting fury as his force of demons was systematically butchered by the combined force of paladins, denarae, and angels. He recognized Uriel at the head of his loathsome Archangels, and Azazel trembled at the thought of the powerful Seraph getting a hold of him. The demon prince limped back behind a screen of balrogs, drolkuls, imps, and gremlins, but he knew it would only be a matter of time before the wall of demons fell before the unstoppable onslaught.
He planned to be long gone by that time, if he could only repair the damage to his body. Two angelic arrows had pierced his leg and another had torn a wide hole in one of his wings and left a glowing blue residue behind that burned with holy pain. The physical damage was minimal, but the presence of the arrows embedded in his demonic flesh was preventing him from escaping back to Hell. Any demon of his power could instantly translocate back to the infernal plane, but not hampered as he was.
Azazel gritted his needle-like teeth and grasped one of the arrows firmly in his hand. The flesh in his palm smoked and burned furiously, but he managed to tear the arrow out and throw it aside. Rather than tackle the second arrow immediately, he instead tore out the remnants embedded in his wing, which were much smaller and more easily managed. He cursed the holy residue and felt some of the pain ebb away.
The third arrow grew dimmer and promised his release, but before Azazel could pull it out a demon was hurled past him and dissolved in mid-air before his eyes. The demon prince looked up and saw a vicious-looking Red paladin bearing down on him with Uriel directly overhead. He shrieked in terror and scrambled back, ignoring the agony in his leg from the still-present arrow.
“Hold, Azazel,” Uriel said, alighting on the ground, “and face your death with dignity. Be thankful it is I who have you now and not Kaelus. He would not be so kind as to give you a swift death.”
“Kaelus is in the hands of the demon king now, fool,” Azazel taunted him as he frantically sought a way to escape. “Your foolish diversions meant nothing. We knew where the traitor was all along, and when we were ready, we took him!”
Another man approached then, one of the mortal prisoners. He was human and wore a gray cloak, but it wasn’t until he looked at the mortal’s face that Azazel cursed himself as a fool for not paying more attention to his captives. The mortal’s eyes burned with a Hellish fire, and he finally realized who it was he’d had in his grasp.
“You!” Azazel spat. “I should have known you’d be near that traitor Kaelus. Did you have fun comparing notes about your captivity and tortures? Or maybe trading stories about how you escaped like cowards and ran whimpering back to the mortal plane.”
The mortal laughed.
“None of you know the truth then?” He closed his fiery eyes slowly and shook his head in amusement. “Kaelus escaped with me, Azazel. I stole him out from under Mephistopheles’s infernal nose, with never the demon king being the wiser. You all wonder at the power that could thwart the will of the King of Hell because you’re blind to the most obvious answer. Amazing. And how impious of you.”
Azazel puzzled through the human�
�s words, but he couldn’t decipher what the mortal creature was talking about.
The fire-eyed mortal looked at him speculatively a moment, then he turned to Uriel. “What was it you said before, Uriel? I’ll hold him, you kick him where it hurts?”
The Red paladin laughed wickedly.
A green-winged Dominion landed beside Uriel, and an enormous Red paladin strode up to stand next to the Gray paladin. They quickly fanned out and encircled Azazel, preventing any last-minute escape attempts. As if I could now, Azazel thought bitterly and with mounting panic.
Uriel drew his flaming sword in one hand and grounded the gleaming war spear he held in the other. He raised the crystalline sword high with both hands and stared at Azazel without the slightest hope of mercy.
“Receive thy doom, demon,” the Seraph intoned as the hated sword descended toward the demon prince.
Azazel screamed in denial.
His scream echoed on and on long after he should have felt the piercing agony of Uriel’s sword, and Azazel choked in surprise as he opened his eyes and saw he was alone on an empty plain in Heaven. Moreover, the plain was white and untainted by demonic presence, so he was far away from the army itself.
The arrow still throbbed in Azazel’s leg, and he spared a moment of agony to remove the heavenly missile. It was only after the glowing blue shaft was gone that he realized he couldn’t have translocated himself, not with the arrow still lodged in his leg. The demon prince stood slowly and looked around him.
Behind him, unnoticed until then, stood an impossibility. Black trees grew in a thick grove with brilliant, verdant leaves gleaming in the accursed, ever-present light of Heaven. Green grass – living grass – crunched softly beneath his feet. Azazel cringed back from the light and hurried toward the promise of shade, ignoring for a moment that no true life existed in either immortal plane.
As he passed the boundaries of the woods, Azazel remembered hearing rumors of living trees spotted somewhere on the infinite plains of Hell, but no one had ever been able to locate the supposed plant life, not even Mephistopheles himself. Arthryx had theorized they were the result of a powerful angel or host of angels being destroyed on the grounds of Hell during the split of the Great Schism, but since none of them could be located, it was impossible to test his ideas. Could this be something similar?
Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) Page 48
