Authors: Stuart Slade
Colonel
Paschal seemed to relax fractionally. He couldn’t be sure Abigor was telling
the truth, but his story was plausible given what he’d seen of demon mentality
so far.
“So
how does this work? Is the lava coming from a volcano?”
“Most
likely. The last time I was in Tartarus was during the Great War, when we used
it as a prison to hold high-ranking captured angels. That was a very long time
ago, but I remember the prison nestled in the mountains, many of which were
crowned with fire.”
“Can
you give us anything more specific?”
Abigor
shrugged. “Not really. I don’t know the specifics of the ritual. Large portals
are always handled by the naga, they keep many of the secrets of portal magery
to themselves.”
“Naga?
Is that what you call the demon flying over the attack site? Looked like an anorexic
harpy to me.”
A
low chuckle escaped the former general’s lips. “No, that was a gorgon. Another
exiled failure, not surprising that most of them took up with Belial. Naga are
much more common… I’m sure I described them to one of your vassals earlier.”
Colonel
Paschal hit a few keys, calling up the interrogation logs for Abigor. Sure
enough, there was a page of text describing ‘naga’ along with a striking
artist’s impression of the half-snake, half-humanoid demons.
“I
had a coven of them in my retinue,” Abigor volunteered, ‘but I didn’t bring any
with me to earth. They’re slow and soft-skinned, and I did not appreciate the
power of your ranged weapons, so I didn’t see any use for them.” He wondered if
it would’ve made a difference if he had brought them. Certainly not to the
outcome, but perhaps the human casualties would have been a fraction higher. He
thought again, a small fraction higher.
“Is
the gorgon necessary to open the portal? If we shoot it down before the portal
opens, will that prevent the attack?”
Abigor
stared into space for a moment. “I believe the gorgon was there to ensure the
portal opened over the target. You see, the larger the portal, the harder it is
to predict where it will open. The one you call the ‘hellmouth’ opened a full
five leagues from the nephilim I possessed.”
“The
naga do have a means of opening portals more accurately, but it requires a
portal mage at both ends. I imagine the gorgon you saw was involved in that. If
you could kill Belial’s witches as they appear, then he would be reduced to
striking at random in the vicinity of whatever nephilim he could find.”
‘Better
than nothing’ Paschal thought. “The target was Sheffield, a relatively small
city in the British Isles. We aren’t aware of any obvious reasons to target it,
other than the fact that British troops played a small but significant role in
your defeat. Do you know why Belial chose that target?”
“No.
Belial is fond of bizarre schemes… but then he must have used a nephilim to
open a portal for the gorgon. It may be that your counter-magic is getting so
good that he was forced to take the first nephilim he could find, and the
gorgon just flew to the nearest city.”
‘So
no way of knowing where they will strike next’ Paschal thought unhappily. “We
need to know when he’ll strike next. How many times can Belial do this, and how
often?”
“I
can’t give you firm answers Colonel. I do know that opening large portals is a
great strain on the naga, they are weak and pained for many days afterwards.
Tartarus has a great many volcanoes. The rate at which Belial can open portals
depends on how many naga he has and how quickly he can find targets. If Satan
intends to use this method to exterminate you, then he might order the dukes to
loan Belial their covens until the task is done.”
“If
not a firm answer, then an educated guess?”
“Belial
should be able to open at least one portal a week.”
Paschal
was silent for a moment. “I’ve got to relay this to my superiors. Sit tight,
Ill be back shortly.” He pulled a black box from a pocket and brought it up to
his ear as he left the room.
Abigor
stared at the frozen image of the burning city. For a while he was completely
certain that the humans would defeat Satan, but now he was not so sure. Old
traditions were being discarded, the once unthinkable was being considered. The
humans had given hell an object lesson in how efficiently war could be
conducted when one made decisions purely on the basis of effectiveness, not
honor, politics, auspiciousness or tradition. How fast could hell learn?
Paschal
had returned. “Ok General, let’s do this properly. I need everything you can
tell me about Belial and Tartarus, starting with its grid co-ordinates.”
Abigor
wasn’t sure what ‘grid co-ordinates’ meant but he got the impression it had
something to do with maps. “You want to know how to get to Tartarus?” Of
course, the humans wanted to stop the attacks by destroying Belial. “It is
almost three thousand leagues from here, across all manner of terrain. Even
with your chariots, it would take many months to fight your way there, and
Satan would harass you and your supply train all the way.”
Paschal
smiled grimly. “General, I have a small gift for you.” He handed over a small
flat box, one that Abigor recognized immediately as a DVD. It was labeled ‘A
History of the Manhattan Project’. “Abigor, you have barely begun to see what
we can do when we truly wish to destroy our enemies.”
White
House Communications Suite, White House, Washington DC
“Well,
if we can’t shut it off, I suppose the only thing left will be to market it as
a tourist attraction.”
It
was probably fortunate that everybody’s attention was focused on the imagery
being transmitted from the aircraft circling Sheffield. Had they been looking
at Condoleezza Rice, they would have seen her eyes bulging from their sockets
with sheer horror. “I can’t believe he just said that.”
Beside
her Defense Secretary Warner nodded fractionally in agreement. “I don’t know
which is worse, the fact he said it or the fact that its true.”
“Mister
President, thankful as we are for America’s usual generous aid in a time of
disaster, I must remonstrate with you. This is hardly a laughing matter for my
country.” Gordon Brown looked shocked as indeed he was.
“I
agree Gordon, and I am sorry if my remark sounded disrespectful of your
country’s loss. But the fact remains, I do not see what we can do about this
yet. We will stand by you, fight with you to save what is left of Sheffield and
its people, but I do not know how we can stop this torrent of lava. And if we
cannot stop it, we must find a way to make use of it.”
“You
mean for all our military forces committed to this war, we cannot stop this
nightmare? That baldrick General who has defected to us. Is he of no help at
all?”
“If
I may interrupt Sir.” On another screen, General Petraeus spoke quietly as was
his way. “We have discussed this with Grand Duke Abigor. He has told us much of
value, identifying the primary culprit, a minor baldrick lord called Belial. He
has told us how it was done and from where. Belial’s stronghold, a place called
Tartarus.”
“So
we can destroy it.” Three people spoke in exact unison even though they were on
different continents. A minor marvel of modern communications that everybody in
the room took for granted.
“That’s
not so easy. Belial is a minor figure, in some disgrace and his fortress is far
from our forces, Three thousand leagues in fact, we make that around 10,500
miles as a B-1 flies.”
“Can
you get your bombers there?” Brown spoke urgently, the pain of Sheffield making
his voice falter.
“We
can Sir.” General John.Corley spoke from Offutt Air Force Base. “As soon as we
find out where ‘There’ is.”
“Abigor
told us. Tartarus.”
“Yes,
but where is it. Sir, I’ve seen the map Abigor drew for us. It’s a good map,
very carefully drawn, one that Abigor obviously took great care over. But it’s
a map drawn by somebody who lives far in our past. It isn’t what we call a map,
its more a picture. You’ve seen old maps Sir. The one Abigor gave us isn’t
scaled and he doesn’t even know what projection is. Come to think of it, nor do
we where Hell is concerned. We’ve got mathematicians working on that. But all
we have is a picture. We’re going to be looking for a target probably about the
size of a town hall, in an area the size of North America. And we’ll be doing
it what amounts to a dense fog. We’re modifying our B-1A to an RB-1A with
sidescan radars and a lot of extra fuel and it’ll go out and look but it could
be weeks before she spots a target.”
Brown
thought for a few seconds. “When we do find it?”
“We’ll
smear it across the ground. But we have to find it first. Bombers aren’t the
only option of course.” Corley spoke carefully.
“A
ground strike? If you need people, the SAS and SBS are ready to go. But how
will they know where?”
“They
won’t have to.” Petraeus’s voice was precise and emphatic. “We don’ have to
know where a Portal is, we just have to know its in the right place. Then we
can put a team in with beacon equipment to home the RB-1A in. And she can lead
the rest of the Bones.”
“And
the Tu-160s.” Prime Minister Putin’s voice was equally emphatic.”
“And
the Tu-160s.” President Bush smiled engagingly at the screen. “General Corley
wants to speak with you about the Tu-160.”
“One
question, General.” Petraeus raised an eyebrow, “if the team are going to be
pathfinders, how will they stay healthy long enough? They can’t have armor and
air-locked buildings.”
“Mister
Prime Minister. We do have military units that are native to Hell now. And we
can reposition one of them for the job. In fact, we are selecting one for it
now.”
Outer
Ring, Sixth Circle of Hell
Hell
made you different. It was the only way he could've reacted how he did to what
he and the others had seen. But then he had felt the same way when he had heard
of children dying of abuse back home. The same sick rage and desire to kill
those responsible. But McElroy crushed his feelinsg down into his boots and
forced himself to watch dispassionately.
Aeneas,
born in an older, harder time, nevertheless felt the same. He and McElroy had
crossed one of the low ridges and advanced down on some of the garrisons that
were starting to spread along the banks of the lava flow. Not too close of
course, even baldricks didn’t feel a desire to be too close to that nightmare,
but far enough to provide patrols. The old days, of a single baldrick
patrolling the banks for days at a time were gone. Too many had gone out and
never come back. Now they patrolled in groups, never far from support. And that
meant garrisons. Where there were garrisons, that meant troops who had to be
supplied and the baldricks had never heard of logistics. So there had to be a
market and sure enough, there was. In a cleared out patch of land, just outside
the walls of one of the fortresses, many dozens of demons plied wares,
bartered, and went about their business. Aeanas kept losing count, but there
had to be well over three hundred demons. The best part of a whole company
perhaps?
It
was in this market that he spied a particular demon, whose cart was packed with
writhing bodies. Human bodies. They were too far away to hear, of course, but
every once in a while, a demon would come by and begin some sort of haggling.
The merchant would fetch a victim from the cart and pass it the customer who
would open its throat with one of its claws, snap its neck for good measure
then eat the carcass on the spot, devouring the body in a few short seconds. It
did not take any of them very long to realize that the humans in the merchant's
wagon were exclusively children.
Aeanas
stared at the scene with cold fury. He did not angrily demand that they throw
caution to the wind and charge in to save the children, a hot-blooded rage that
blinded its victim to common sense would have called for that. Instead,
stone-faced, he watched the merchant empty his wagon, pack up his other
trinkets, and be off down the rutted dirt road. So did Cassidy and McElroy.
There would be a time for vengeance, a time when debts like this one would be
paid but this was not it. Three humans attacking 300 baldricks with edged
weapons was simply a way to die. Or be thrown back in the lava streams
Aeanas
was a Spartan warrior. To him, nothing was more satisfying than battering his
opponent down and finishing him with two or three blows. An honorable battle
where one man was pitched against another with victory going to the strongest
and bravest. Only that way was victory meaningful. So when he thought about
helpless children being sold as some sort of delicacy the scene just added to
the anger and voluminous hate he held in his heart for his tormentors. He could
not be certain, but he suspected that Cassidy and McElroy felt largely the same
way. But did they? They didn’t look upon war the same way as he did, war for
them was an exercise in cost-effective killing where the objective was to make
sure the enemy never stood a chance. Aeneas had tried to explain where true
honor lay once but McElroy had simply looked at him and said “If it’s a fair
fight, you made a mistake somewhere.”
So
were they affected by the horror they had seen? They were, of course, silent on
these trips unless speech was absolutely necessary, but they didn't seem any
more subdued or lethargic. Instead, they pushed on to get back to base at their
same stalwart pace that their state of second death afforded them. It was that
silence that allowed Aeanas to kill his first demon.