Refuge: Book 5: Angels & Demons

by Doug Dandridge

  Maybe we're doing some good, keeping these things away from the main fight. That might not be the most satisfying result, but it was what it was.

  "Dammit," yelled Wolfgang, staring up at the ceiling as another crack appeared, and the middle of the structure took on a decided sag. "We need to get out of here."

  "And go where," yelled his brother, Reinhold, back at him. "We're fucked."

  "I don't want to die," screamed Wolfgang.

  Who does? Dirk thought as he launched into another riff to extend the song. But we might not have a choice here.

  His daddy had told him that it mattered how a man died, as much as how he lived. If he had to die, it would be facing his enemy, shouting defiance in its face. How he acted after, when his soul was being dragged down to some slimy hell, would be the question, but while life still existed in his body, he could fight.

  A demon hit the roof with a massive strike, and this time the sag became an opening. It wouldn't be long now. A couple of more strikes and it would come down, and they would have the choice of either being buried under the stone or running into the claws of the demons. He knew which he would want to choose, but his body might not react the way he wanted. He was afraid that when the roof came down, he would run like hell, trying to prolong his life for a few more seconds. He wasn't sure what kind of afterlife he would have if he were crushed to death, but if the demons took his life directly, it would not be pleasant.

  A demon screeched, then a second, and then suddenly they were all screeching. The sound of flapping wings grew louder, until it became obvious that there were more than three creatures out there. Another cry sounded out, one that was a combination of fury and musical tones.

  Dirk walked to the door, his skin crawling the entire way. He could imagine a claw darting through and grabbing him before he could get back. He shook a bit, and then took another step within range of the monsters. He knew that they also spit fire, though they hadn't tried it against the band. Maybe because of the magic of music. Maybe.

  Dirk looked up as he got to the doorway, and almost shouted in joy as he saw four of the gloriously beautiful angels in a weaving battle with the three demons. He forced his mouth shut. It would not do to attract the attention of those demons when they were otherwise occupied.

  "Pick up the pace, boys," yelled Dirk, stepping back to his position in front of the band. "We have heavenly protectors, and I'm sure they would appreciate some of our energy."

  The other members started whooping, and they began weaving a harmony that would discomfit the demons, while hopefully giving strength to the angels. It was definitely giving the band members strength, and courage. Dirk started to sing along to the song that had no words, just musical sounds that moved along with his guitar. Adding more power to the tune.

  The screeching of the demons assumed a panicked tone; the song of the angels grew in strength. Something screeched in agony, then another, and then there was silence outside the ruins.

  "I'm going to see what's happening," Dirk told the band. "You keep playing."

  Dirk fought his feelings, one part wanting him to get out there and find out what happened, the other demanding caution. Haste won out, this time, and he stepped out of the ruins to see a demon lying on the ground, starting to dissolve into a foul smelling goop. He looked to the right and there was another one, off about forty meters away, still alive, for the moment. One of the angels pushed a glowing sword of light into its chest, and it shuddered once and started into the same dissolving act. To his left at the same distance was the form of an angel, no longer glowing, and showing no life. An instant later, it was coming apart, shiny particles rising into the air, heading into the clouds.

  "They got them!" he yelled back into the structure.

  Flapping sounds came from overhead along with a downdraft. Dirk looked up quickly, fear again alive in his body. It left as soon as he looked at the creature that was coming in for a landing to his front. It was a three-meter tall being with what looked like white robes on its body. With a closer look, it turned out to be its outer covering with a surface of white fur like that of a bat. The wings were not what he had been expecting either. They were also like the wings of a bat, with glowing white fur covering the surface. The face that looked down on him could have been human, or Ellala. The ears were shaped like neither, while the eyes fluctuated between glowing blue and white. The hair on the head was the same white as the body fur. He couldn't tell if it was male or female, or even if such terms made sense for a creature like this.

  The angel reached one hand down, palm up. Dirk put his own hand in the larger member, and felt a shiver of energy enter his body. He smiled as it ran through him, a feeling of healing and relaxation and something else. Some kind of strength that he thought might be permanent.

  The angel gave a head nod, then jumped into the air, wings stretching out and propelling it upward and outward. Back to the fight. Where Dirk needed to be.

  "Help me get the equipment out here," he said to the others as he walked back in with a spring in his step.

  "Why can't we just stay here?" asked Peter, leaning on his drum kit.

  "Because our side needs us. Now get your asses moving and let's get to it."

  The band started moving as soon as the words left his mouth. Uncharacteristic for them. Dirk had to wonder what kind of power the angelic being had given him.

  * * *

  Jackie did not like going underground like this. It felt like the walls were closing in around her, like the ceiling was going to come crashing down on her and bury her alive. She wished she hadn't volunteered for this mission. She could have let Izabella and Gregor handle this while she kept her ass in the sunlight.

  "Are you okay?" asked Gregor, looking like he was feeling no discomfort at all being in this tomb. The hammer he held was not the most magical object among the immortals. However, it had enough enchantment that with his great strength it was a deadly weapon.

  Izabella had some very good weapons herself: a heavily enchanted bastard sword and a shield of mithril that could bash the life out of someone in her hands. But neither of them had the weapons she did. The twin katanas, what she called Fire and Ice, were not quite god weapons, but they were the next thing to them. Some major magic had been performed on these dwarven-forged blades, and they had let her kill all kinds of powerful creatures.

  "I'll make it," she said, shivering a moment, then setting her will to carry her forward.

  Dwarves had been streaming past them for minutes now, heading the wrong way. None of the creatures would answer their questions. They all looked down, afraid and ashamed that they were afraid. The sounds of conflict came from ahead, yells and screeches, rock and metal pounding on each other. The smell of brimstone filled the air, along with the iron odor of blood.

  The trio turned a corner and there was the battle, but not what any of them were expecting. Giant creatures of rock fought with red demons. Dwavern priests ran around getting in what licks they could. Bodies covered the ground, some in the peaceful aspect of death, many more crushed or torn apart.

  "Who do we attack?" asked Izabella, stopping in her tracks as her eyes shifted back and forth over the fight. She looked like she was about to break and run herself, and Jackie wouldn't have blamed her if she had. In fact, she probably would have followed her as quickly as her legs would carry her.

  They had a job to do here, to take these tunnels, break through the ground in the courtyard behind the gates, then take those portals. These things stood in their way, so they needed to be killed.

  "The red things are demons," she shouted out. "And they're fighting the rock things. So I would say we kill the red things and help the rock things, unless we find out otherwise." Finding out otherwise could be when the rock creatures started pounding on them with those huge fists.

  The other two immortals nodded, and then started forward. Jackie picked out a demon that was part of a quartet mobbing one of the rock creatures and ran at it. She plunged
Fire, the blade in her right hand, up to its hilt in the back of the demon, while swinging Ice into a wing. The demon exploded into black ichor from the temperature differential of the two blades. Jackie closed her eyes trying to keep the fluid out, but some made it onto her eyeball, burning.

  She felt sick for a moment, remembering that the blood of demons was said to be extremely poisonous. She shrugged off the feeling, hoping that her metabolism would protect her from it. With a shake of her head, she focused on the next demon, killing it with her two blades as they slid in within centimeters of each other.

  Gregor crushed a demon, then another, turning into a squat dervish of death. Izabella took a more methodical approach, killing one demon, stepping back, killing another.

  The dwarven priests disengaged, and Jackie thought for a moment they were going to run, now that they had been delivered from the demons. However, none of them left the area, only standing back, leaning on the walls, catching their breath and regaining their energy. They left it to the immortals and their rock allies for the moment.

  Jackie went into overdrive, her blades flashing, each strike causing a major wound. The fire blade sliced like an infinitely sharp razor, though the heat didn't damage the earth demons as much as the immortal expected. Probably due to the fact that they were creatures of the earth, and the heat of the planet. The ice blade froze the flesh and muscles of the creatures when it thrust or sliced in. When the demon tried to move the affected member, the flesh shattered like ice hit by a hammer.

  The immortals turned the tide, killing enough of the demons to switch the numbers to the side of the Gods of Law. When it had turned far enough, the priests reentered the battle, wielding their holy power to weaken the demons. Jackie was still swinging when there was nothing left to strike. She was on edge, feeling trapped, and wanting to smash her way out.

  "Hey, watch it," yelled one of the dwarves as her blade sliced over his head.

  Fire slammed into some unyielding object, jarring her arm, and she looked down to see Izabella leaning into her shield, absorbing her hits. A pair of strong arms slid around her and pinioned her limbs to her sides.

  "Calm down," said Gregor into her ear. "It's over. We've won."

  "Okay," she said, and the Russian let her go.

  Jackie immediately put away her blades in their special sheaths, removing them from the chance of damaging others. She took a couple of breaths, and then shrugged her shoulders.

  "It's not over," she said, shaking her head. "We need to bust out of here and take the courtyard. Then the gates."

  Nobody seemed to want to move all that quickly, but she wanted to get moving, to get these damned tunnels behind her.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The huge red dragon landed, the earth shaking as its great bulk hit the ground. Kurt still could not believe such an animal could actually fly. It couldn't on Earth. Of course, almost none of the lesser dragons or any of the demons could fly on his home world. Flying had little to do with muscle power and air density here, though the gravity was lower and the atmosphere thicker. One of the scientists from Earth had explained that the gravitational constant in this universe was lower than in theirs. The planet was much larger than Earth, over fifty percent more surface area. The sun was almost fifty percent more massive, but because of the constant it only put out slightly more energy than Sol. Refuge was in a further orbit, taking over four hundred of its twenty-four hour days to orbit, and receiving about the same amount of luminosity as his home world at that distance.

  Flight here had little to do with physics, and almost everything to do with magic. Dragons, demons, the giant birds, all used magical energy to fly. Their aerodynamic forms allowed them to propel themselves forward and maneuver, which was still amazing.

  This dragon was even larger than the great wyrm the armored cavalry had killed in the early days when the newcomers still had their advanced technology. It glared down at the humans and elves while the demons flew to its side, seemingly careful to avoid close proximity. It seemed a wise move some moments later when one of the lesser demons came too close. The long neck of the great beast flung its maw sideways and its jaws closed on the demon that was frantically trying to get away. Its efforts stopped as the teeth met through its body, destroying it. Before it could dissolve, the dragon swallowed the body, its forked tongue licking its lips.

  "What the hell are we going to do now?" asked Paul, looking nervously at the monster.

  The angels had also gathered, on the opposite side of the battlefield. They looked to be as calm as ever, but Kurt was willing to bet that if they could shit, they would be shitting their armored britches. The equation had shifted fully into the odds of the evil God of Death. It was looking like everything on the side of life was going to be stomped into the dirt.

  The dragon shimmered, a red light, and started to shrink, its horns and wings folding into its body, its limbs shortening. Finally, the body shrank to merely massive size and started to take on the aspect of a humanoid. That humanoid continued to shrink, until a handsome Ellala stood where the dragon had.

  "What the hell?" exclaimed Paul. "It's an elf."

  "I doubt that it’s really an elf," said Levine, shaking his head.

  "No," agreed Kurt, feeling the evil radiating off the thing in tangible waves. "I don't think it is."

  "My good people," said the man in a voice that carried over the field. "Why are we killing ourselves? What is the purpose of this battle? I doubt all of this death serves any purpose other than death itself."

  "Which is what you serve, is it not?" yelled Levine, his own strong lungs amplifying his voice beyond that of a normal human or elf. "Bothar, the God of Death. Isn't that the one you serve?"

  "Bothar is not an evil god, no matter what that harridan Arathonia might have told you. Bothar is a father who wants what is best for his people."

  Kurt could feel the waves of something hitting him, trying to sooth his mind. Fortunately, his will was stronger than that. He glanced around, seeing the humans, elves and dwarves all staring at the man with rapturous looks on their faces. Some had already dropped their weapons onto the ground. Others held them in limp hands, on the verge of dropping them.

  "Don't listen to him," yelled Levine. "He is a liar, and the servant of a liar. Just like Satan on our world."

  A few of the humans started to shake it off, those who still believed in the Earth gods. The others were still under the spell. The angels started to yell at each other, their musical voices sounding through the air. It seemed to have some effect on the mortals who were struggling to get out from under the hypnotic power of the lesser god.

  "We need to do something," said Levine, looking at his two comrades.

  "What?" asked Paul, his eyes wide, still in shock.

  "Kill it," said Kurt, gripping his sword tight and stepping forward. His heart was beating hard in his chest; the sweat was rolling off his face and hands. His sensitive nostrils could smell the fear in his sweat. He wanted to lay down on the ground and shake until this was all over and nothing but a bad dream. But he knew it wasn't a dream. It might have been the nightmare reality of this world, but it was real.

  The German had been a soldier back in the second global war of the twentieth century. He had been an officer in a Panzergrenadier regiment, starting the war as a platoon leader, ending as a lt. colonel in charge of a regiment, though the regiment was by that time no larger than an understrength battalion. He had wanted to be in tanks, but someone of his height could not fit in one of the armored monsters.

  He had believed in the German cause at first, the cause of the Fuhrer. The honeymoon period had not outlasted the invasion of France. By Poland he had hated the war, and everything the Nazis had promised had been exposed for a lie, but he continued to fight, not for a cause, but for the people around him. He fought his way through Russia, first with the advancing army, then the retreating, until he had surrendered to the Americans, one of the fortunate ones. He had promised himself he
would have nothing to do with war for the rest of his life, not even realizing at the time how long that might last.

  Here he was in another war, charging at an enemy he could not possibly beat. Again, not for a cause, but for the people around him, that these evil bastards would kill the first chance they got. Fear was not something to be despised. Fear was natural, and its effects on the body could be used. Fear was nothing of which to be ashamed. Succumbing to fear, and not doing one’s duty. That was something of which to be ashamed.

  Kurt screamed out the rage that was fueled by the fear as he ran forward, going into the overdrive that his metabolism gave him, eyes locked on the man that wasn't mortal, determined to strike him down. His two friends ran with him while the host of angels flew above them on a course that would get them to the demons just before the immortals got to the lesser god.

  That being looked into Kurt's eyes with all the evil and corruption of the world in his gaze and started to shimmer. Before the immortals could reach him, he was again undergoing the change, this time growing back to his draconic form.

  * * *

  Jackie waited impatiently as the dwarves removed the last of the obstructive earth that the Orcs had piled in the way, breaking through to air and the light of day. Only it was the dark of a heavy overcast, as if a storm had come up since she and her companions had gone underground.

  As the first dwarves broke through, they came under fire from a host of Ellala archers, standing on the walls of the castle above the city and raining shafts on their heads. Most of the dwarves had very good armor, but many of the arrows coming in had the glowing heads of magical penetrators, more than was expected. They bounced from the armor of the dwarves that had major enchantments on them, but penetrated the protection of lesser or no enchantment at all. As the first group was cut down, the next came up with raised shields, to meet a mass of Orcs which tried to use strength to batter down the shield wall.