Authors: Stuart Slade
“Our
lord Satan has decreed that knowing what I am about to tell you is grounds for
immediate execution. I will not hesitate to enforce this order if I discover
that you have revealed the situation to any others without my express permission.”
Belial paused for a second to allow this to sink in.
“Three
days ago, the humans used their 'aircraft' to smash the tip of Lucifer's
Finger. Satan's place was completely destroyed, rendered into rubble along with
everything nearby. I commanded near a hundred orcs to dig through the ruins for
half a day, but we found no survivors. Our lord survived only because he was
away, sightseeing over the pit on that monstrosity Euryale made for him.”
“You
understand what this means? The humans can destroy any strongpoint, anywhere.
Their sky chariots fly too fast, too high to be stopped. With what we've done,
and with that traitor Abigor...” Belial's tone dripped with contempt for the
turncoat general “...must be telling them, it's only a matter of time before
they come here.”
The
room fell silent. The destruction of Satan's palace was nearly unthinkable, no
one knew how to respond to it. Yet Belial still had more bad news to deliver.
“As
I returned from Dis I overflew Beezelbub's army, or rather the tattered
remnants of it. The humans had destroyed it almost completely. Our wyvern
riders – the few who survived – speak of poison fog that strikes down all who
enter and rolling thunder that obliterates everything in its path. In short the
human used their magery to destroy our grand army, while suffering trivial
casualties in return.”
Belial
looked upon the faces of his servants and saw shock, horror and poorly
concealed disbelief. “There can be no denying this. We thought we were going to
earth to exterminate the humans, but in truth exactly the opposite is
happening. They have come here to destroy us utterly, to slaughter every demon
in hell, and so far our armies have been as helpless against theirs as theirs
once were against us.”
Euryale
spoke at last. “Count Belial, you make our doom sound almost inevitable. Yet
you do not despair. So you must have a plan to stop the humans?”
“Actually
it's Grand Duke Belial now, for what that's worth. I am Satan's favored
servant, at least for as long as our Lord can evade the hunting aircraft.”
“I
am certain that the humans will strike Tartarus the way they struck Lucifer's
Finger. It is only a matter of time. I intend to preserve my own forces at all
costs and rally what I can of the Asmodeus's reserves. We will move into
Asphodel immediately. Zatheoplekkar, you will devise marching orders that avoid
concentrating our troops in obvious strongpoints or large formations. The
humans are moving on Dis and despite their magery it will take them time to
reduce a city of that size. We have some time to prepare defenses.”
Zatheoplekkar
was staring at the map, a charcoal stick clutched in one hand. “My lord, we can
occupy the territory, but if what you say is true what good will it do us? If
the Lord of the Flies could not stop them...”
Belial
cut him off. “Your goal is to buy time. Perhaps you can draw inspiration from
the defensive tactics the human use - I will have you question the wyvern
riders about what they saw of the battle later. For any hope of success, we
rely on the efforts of Trajakrithoth and Euryale.” He turned to the hulking
forge master. “What progress have you to report?”
The
baron had been eager to demonstrate his new weapon, but now the obvious
inadequacy of it in the face of the situation made him almost ashamed. He had
no choice but to proceed though.
“The
humans call this a 'shotgun'. The escort we sent with that first gorgon, they
brought it back from earth. We can't make an exact duplicate, but we can make
something that works well enough. I'll show you.”
Trajakrithoth
raised the black double-tube, gripping the bulging end with a single massive
hand. The weapon now possessed a pair of tiny holes in the top of the chamber,
each with a ring of bronze soldered clumsily around it. The demon pulled out a
phial of powder and tipped a tiny amount into one of the bronze rings, then
drew out a taper and lit it from one of the candles. He pointed the weapon at a
wall and touched the burning taper to the improvised flash pan.
Flame
spewed from the barrel, accompanied by a retort that was deafeningly loud in
the enclosed space. The thick cloud of acrid smoke made the demon's eyes water
as it dispersed into the room. The stones in the far wall had cracked and now
had several lumps of jagged iron embedded in them.
“The
weapons we are making now will be easier to fire of course, though harder to
reload, as we have not found a way to make the barrel break open” 'At least not
without exploding' Trajakrithoth thought, but no need for his lord to know
that.
“Euryale's
handmaiden described something called 'flintlocks', which would be even better,
but for now we are making what she called 'matchlocks'...”
Trajakrithoth's
voice trailed off. Belial had leapt to his feet and his expression has furious.
“Toys!
Worthless toys!” The horned demon lord grabbed the improvised arquebus from his
servant's hands. “You expect this to stop an iron chariot? How am I to defeat
the humans with such pitiful weapons?”
Despite
his bulk Trajakrithoth was cowering and for a moment Euryale expected Belial to
kill him right there, but amazingly Belial managed to reign in his rage. His
expression softened and he handed the gun back to the other demon, then grabbed
his shoulders.
“Trajakrithoth,
I am certain this would have been a useful terror weapon if we were fighting
demon armies. But the situation has changed. You must give me a way to stop the
aircraft and the iron chariots. You must find it soon or we are all food for
the humans. Do you understand me?”
“My
lord, I... what you ask... I don't know it is even possible...”
“Euryale,
you still those human traitors who claimed to know how to build their weapons,
yes?”
“Yes,
my lord. They are here in the palace. I assigned some of my gorgons to continue
manipulating them, cementing their loyalties.”
“Send
them all down to Palelabor with Trajakrithoth. Secrecy is irrelevant now. Do
whatever you have to, tell them whatever you have to, ignore any traditions
that get in the way. Just find me a way to destroy those iron chariots.”
Trajakrithoth
still looked dazed by this radical turn of events; meanwhile, Euryale was
calculating furiously. Belial frowned. “The humans draw closer every moment.
Move!” Shocked out of his stupor, Trajakrithoth bowed clumsily and ran from the
room.
As
soon as the doors had slammed shut again, Euryale spoke up. “Are we to continue
the lava attacks on the human cities?”
“Of
course. Satan commands it. More importantly, it would be pointless to stop now.
The humans will be coming for us either way, so we might as well inflict what
wounds we can on them.”
“But
if they do strike, destroy your palace, would it not be best to stop attacking,
make them think they killed you? If your goal is to buy time...”
Belial
stared at Euryale. “I will decide policy here. What news from your servant on
earth? Has she identified more targets for us?”
“My
lord, not only has she done that, she believes she can attack them even without
portals. She has built up quite a cult and her humans have been telling her
about 'karr bombs' and 'EyeEeeDees'...”
Belial
waved dismissively. “Fine, tell her to continue. But I have a more urgent task
for you. The humans have revealed themselves to be a more formidable enemy than
the Enemy himself ever was. It is time to see whether the Enemy of our enemy
might be our friend.”
Deep
Beneath the Tartauran Range
The
rough hewn tunnel went on and on, descending deeper than Herwijer had thought
possible given the demon's primitive tools. The huge armored demon seemed to
read his mind; "It took hundreds of slaves a score of human lifetimes to
reach the veins I scried, and two score more to dig out the complex
itself." The huge platform bumped and swayed as it ran on into the
darkness, its bronze wheels screaming in complaint as they rounded the sharper
terms. The hot, dead air suddenly became damp, and presently the walls fell
away as they passed over a rough stone bridge spanning a vast chasm. The
torches on the cart could revealed nothing in that vast space to human eyes,
but Herwijer thought he could make out the faint splashing and roaring of
running water before they plunged into the opposite wall. They continued on for
another ten minutes, the monotony now broken by the occasional side tunnel, all
of which looked thoroughly abandoned.
Presently
the tracks emerged into another vast cavern, but this time there was no water
and the air became suffocatingly close. Instead Herwijer caught a brief glimpse
of monstrous shapes, seemingly half-man and half-rat, clinging onto the walls
of the cavern. Their eyes flashed red with hatred and fear, before they
scurrying away into the darkness. The platform began to slow as it passed over
the second bridge, a persistent whining building into an ear-splitting scream
as the servitor demon applied the brakes. Huge piles of smashed rock were
visible to either side of the track, the spoil of uncounted centuries of
mining. A dim glow appeared ahead, resolving into a pair of ornate bronze doors
set in a carved stone archway that must be a hundred feet high. Numerous burning
torches protruded from niches in the stonework, maintaining the cavern's smoky
atmosphere and giving the whole scene an appropriately hellish glow. For a
moment it appeared that they were not slowing fast enough and every human on
the platform braced in anticipation of hitting the doors, but with a great
crack they split apart, drawing open at the pull of creaking chains.
The
platform screeched to a stop in the entrance hall. Great carved columns
supported the roof of a vast space, mostly filled with crates, barrels and
neatly stacked metal bars. The humans stared around them, seeing a maze of
tunnels leading off in every direction. A steady yellow glow lit many of the
lower tunnels, suggesting open lava flows close by. Swarming everywhere were short
but stocky demons, with grey skin and hairless but for a mass of bedraggled,
matted fur hanging from the bottom of their wizened faces. Most of them were
carrying picks, axes and tongs. They seemed to move with furious industry; they
barely paused to incline their heads to Trajakrithoth before continuing with
whatever tasks they were set. Herwijer blinked and looked closer. The tools
they were carrying were made of iron.
Trajakrithoth
spoke at last, he voice filled with pride. "Humans, know that you are uniquely
privileged, for of all your kind you are the first to ever enter the Fortress
of Palelabor."
(Marina
contributed the first part and Starglider the last two).
Chapter
Seventy Five
RAF
Scampton, Lincolnshire, UK.
Flight
Sergeant John Archibald wiped his brow, reflecting on the fact that changing
the gun pack on a Hunter FGA.9 had never been as hard work ‘back in the day’,
at least it was not a Lightning ‘quick change pack’. If ever there was a
misnamed piece of equipment that was it. Still he and the other ‘old timers’
needed to show these young National Servicemen and women how to do the job of
rearming an aircraft and demonstrate that they were still up to the job
themselves.
“And
that, boys and girls is how we change the gun pack on a Hunter.” He paused for
a second to let a patrol of Hawk T.1A trainers, once painted in bright red and
white colors, but now hastily painted grey and armed with AIM-9Ls and a 30mm
gun pod, take off behind them. “Not as difficult as you might have thought, was
it? “We’ll get you started on changing gun packs today and once you’re
proficient on that we’ll move onto something more challenging like a SNEB
rocket pod, or one thousand pound bomb.”
Before
retiring from RAF service as a sergeant Archibald had been an armorer, mainly
working on Lightnings and Phantoms. Amongst the milestones of his career had
been when a Phantom FGR.2 he had been responsible for had managed to
accidentally shoot down a Jaguar GR.1, and he and some colleagues had once
managed to trick an airman into standing guard over a WE.177 that was
supposedly leaking ‘liquid plutonium’. His face when the ‘clean up crew’
arrived in full NBC gear had been a picture; sadly the RAF Police had been less
impressed by the joke. Like so many other service pensioners once Queen’s Order
Two had been signed he had found himself back in RAF blue, though at least he
now wore a crown above the three chevrons of his former rank.
The
RAF had deliberately chosen to form a number of new squadrons equipped with the
Hunter. There were still many of them around in airworthy condition, the Avon
engine was still in production for industrial use, they were rugged aircraft,
not so sophisticated that they would need lots of technical support, yet fast
enough to be able to deal with Harpies if necessary, and had a useful ground
attack capability. The first source of Hunters that the RAF had turned to had
been the one’s the service owned itself, aircraft in taxiable condition that
were use for ground movements training, and British museums. After that they
had gone abroad, buying some Swiss Hunters, before going as far a field as
Zimbabwe, India and Chile, looking for potential airframes. Fortunately the
majority of those aircraft exported were either FGA.9s, or had been based on
that model, so commonality was not too much of a problem, though the most
troublesome aircraft had been the ex-Royal Navy GA.11s which had to have ADEN
cannons and ‘Sabrinas’ fitted to them, both of which were not always easy to
source.