Armageddon?? (80 page)

That
was the way it had always been and that was the way Abigor had fought. And his
army had been destroyed in the most catastrophic defeat ever inflicted on
demonic arms. Not even the Celestial Enemy had ever done the damage the humans
had inflicted on Abigor. Lapradanultrox appreciated Beelzebub’s desire not to
repeat the same experience on an even more cataclysmic scale but to cast away
every basic principle of warfare? Beelzebub’s decisions were courageous in more
ways than one. Such a break with the past would be heroic, if he won. It could
easily be considered treason if he lost.

“But
where is our great blow? How shall we defeat the enemy without the one massive
strike to break his will? How can we crush their defense without the
concentrated blow of the Beasts?” Lapradanultrox looked again at the strange
formation.

“Look
at the humans, Lapradanultrox, look at them. Where is the defense for us to
breach? They have not drawn a line, not even one behind a ridgeline as Abigor
described. Instead there is a field of death ahead of us, as deep as we can
see. Our cavalry cannot charge through it, they will lose speed and momentum before
they get far enough to matter and they will be destroyed. We cannot charge
through the defense the humans have constructed, we mush chew our way through
it. The foot soldier groups, each with the extra strength of a Beast to support
them, will take on those small defense positions and we will chew our way
through.”

“This
will be a bloody day.” Lapradanultrox adjusted his vision for long range and
scanned the human defenses that were waiting, silently, mercilessly.

“Bloody
day? I think not. This battle will not be over in a day. It will go on for days
until the human army has been crushed. Like it or not, Lapradanultrox, the days
when a battle would be decided honorably in a single day are gone. The humans
have won the first battle of all, we now fight on their terms and no matter
what happens, things in Hell will never be the same again. Now, sound the
advance to contact.”

Below
them, the great Army started to move forward. Word was being passed to the
assembled harpies, to swarm into the air and commence their assault on the
humans. That was Beelzebub’s plan, to hit the humans with his foot soldiers,
harpies and Beasts all together so that the humans would be overwhelmed.

Then,
far away behind the human lines, beyond the region where the dust-laden atmosphere
closed out vision, Beelzebub saw something strange and inexplicable. A sheet of
flickering light, like the bolts thrown by the tridents of his foot soldiers
and nagas, but covering the horizon in great sheets, reflecting off the clouds
overhead.

“Human
magery!” Lapradanultrox’s voice rose into a scream. “The human mages have
started their work. The battle is joined.”

Artillery
Battalion, Rear Echelon, Phlegethon River Front

This
particular battalion had guns that were an odd hybrid, old D-30 122mm guns
mounted on a new truck chassis. A product of the emergency mobilization that
had all of Russia in ferment. The guns had come from storage, the trucks had
once been intended for the civilian market, although why civilians would need 8
x 8 trucks had never been quite clear. It was rumored Americans wanted them for
conversion into SUVs. But, the design for the self-propelled guns had been
drawn up for the export market where wheeled, self-propelled artillery had been
a big growth sector. Those plans had been modified quickly for the Great
Salvation War and the truck-mounted guns had poured off the lines as fast as
the factories could be converted. Artillery was the God of War, a God that had
never let the Russian Army down.

Lieutenant
Sergei Aleksandrovich Ehlakov commanded this battery of six guns and he had his
assigned fire-plan. It was laid down, strictly, severely, the targets clearly
designated for destruction on a finely judged schedule. It was not his place to
select targets or to swing his guns from one place to another. He was not an
American officer who would swing his guns from one point target to the next,
his place in the scheme of things was as a part of a machine that delivered
massive, total destruction. His task was to keep his guns firing, to drench the
battlefield with high explosive so that the enemy could not move forward to
attack the defense lines. He had his support of course, the big trucks carrying
ammunition and all around him, the little jeeps with their anti-aircraft guns welded
on to the beds. His D-30s had come from store and so had the anti-aircraft
guns. Quadruple 14.5 mm machine guns, twin 23 mm cannon, whatever had been in
storage was here, to protect the guns from attack.

“Battalion
Control Tovarish Lieutenant. The enemy is moving. Commence fire plan in
six-zero seconds.”

The
gunners were waiting, the first shells already in the breeches of the guns. Who
would have the honor of firing the first shell against the enemy horde
descending upon them? The first of the thousands that would descend like rain
on that enemy and grind his forces into the mud. Would his guns, here on the
northern flank, succeed in opening this great battle? Or would the guns further
south have that honor? Ehlakov watched the figures on his clock changing as
they reached the appointed second. Then, the strained silence turned into a
mighty roar that crushed his eardrums and seemed to drive him into the ground.
The ground that was already shaking in a rolling sea-like motion as the long
lines of guns recoiled, their spades digging deep into the ground, before they
returned to their position and their gunners could stuff more shells into their
chambers and send another ‘package’ to its recipients. Now, all that Ehlakov
could see were his men dropping into the methodical, routine motions as the
shells were brought forward and fired. He looked down to his next target, in
two minutes he would have to shift to the next aiming point.

Third
Platoon, Second Company, Third Battalion, Fourth Regiment, 247th Motor Rifle
Division, Phlegethon River Front, Hell

“Here
it comes Bratischka. The enemy advances and our gunners make their reply. Soon
it will be our turn.”

Lieutenant
Anatolii Ivanovich Pas'kov dropped into the turret of his BMP-2 and fastened it
in place. There was nothing to be gained by staying outside now. The word
passed down from on high was that humans were more or less safe inside their
armored vehicles. They should fight from them, not outside them. Pas’kov felt
agreeably comfortable with that advice. Overhead, he could hear the
express-train roar of the artillery shells overhead, heard it even through the
metal shell of his BMP. “Outbound” he yelled, instinct taking over. For a quick
second he wondered what it would be like to be outside, under the tons of
descending metal that was aimed at the demons, then he decided he didn’t care
and certainly didn’t want to find out. Being inside his faithful BMP-2 suited
him just fine.

Outside,
seen through the vision blocks of the BMP, Pas’kov could see a mass of black
covering the opposite banks of the river. A terrifying sight, he’d heard the
numbers of the enemy were counted in the millions but he’d never quite imagined
what “millions” looked like. Now he knew. The artillery had its work cut out.

Tornado
GR.4, 617 Squadron, Royal Air Force.

“You
know, it’s a pity we phased the old JP-233 out of service.”

“You
can say that, you never used one.” Squadron Leader Desmond Young had been one
of the pilots who had used the JP-233 on its one and only operational
deployment, 17 years ago in the Gulf War. He wasn’t quite certain which had
been worse, the light displays as the submunition dispenser had fired its
cargo, the violent changes in pitch as the weight distribution had changed or
the Iraqi anti-aircraft fire that had been all around them. All in all, it had
been an exciting night and Young had been only too pleased to hear that the
JP-233 had been withdrawn from service. Officially that was because of the
anti-land mines treaty but the real reason was that the crews had made their
discontent with the weapon very plain.

“Targets
dead ahead.” In the back seat, Flight Lieutenant Wyngarde had the target area
marked on the rolling map in front of him. Navigating in Hell was weird,
nothing seemed to work quite right, an aircraft couldn’t just retrace its route
to get home. A crew that relied on instinct to navigate could get hopelessly
lost. Still, the navigation systems people were working on that, they had the
beacons set up and, with them, a modernized version of the old Gee navigation
equipment first used by Bomber Command in World War Two. It might be an old
system but it worked, even in Hell. “Clear of the prohibited zone.”

That
was crucial, the last thing the Tornadoes needed was to get caught in the mass
of descending Russian shells. So, the bombers had flown a looped route, one
that took them parallel to the Phlegethon River and over the area where the
drones had said the enemy harpies had gathered. Young didn’t need navigation
systems to see where his target lay, it was directly ahead, marked by the
beginnings of a cloud of harpies taking to the air. The strike was a few second
late but that didn’t matter too much.

The
eight Tornadoes swept over the harpy assembly area, raining more than 60 BL-755
cluster bombs on the creatures below. The ground vanished under a rippling wave
of explosions as the Tornadoes swept over the scene and turned for the run
home, the airborne harpies floundering in their wake. Long before the Tornadoes
crossed the Harpy grounds, they had pulled back into a steep climb, releasing
their bombs as they did, so the bombs were tossed into the mass of harpies,
rather than dropped on them. By the time the bombers reached the center of the
target area, they were already clear of the harpy cloud and climbing steeply.

“We’re
clear Peter, Dragon-one to all dragon elements, weapons delivered, time to go
home and get some more.”

Wyngarde
looked over his shoulder at the explosions still rolling over the ground now
far below them. “Drop confirmed Boss. And to think they wanted to take our
cluster bombs away.”

Command
Post, Northern Front, Phlegethon River Bulge, Hell

The
flickering lightning seemed never to stop, it was rolling backwards and
forwards along the horizon. Overhead, Beelzebub heard a dreadful screaming
noise, obviously the battle-cry of the human mages. It was squeezing his mind,
causing his vision to blur, and as it peaked, he saw the whole of the river
bank under his army erupt into volcanoes that spewed mud, water and bits of
demon skywards. A rippling surge of explosions that blanketed the whole area.
That was when Beelzebub felt something very strange, a wind, a warm wind that
picked up force as the human mage bolts pounded into his Army. Overhead the
same winds rippled the clouds of dust that saturated the atmosphere, forming
them into strange patterns that swirled and changed even as he watched them.
Like the blood of a human kidling stirred into a cup of wine.

“My
Lord, the magery, it is causing winds to blow and storms to form.”

So
the humans could control the weather as well as their other accomplishments.
That thought did not make Beelzebub any happier. The descriptions he’d heard of
the human mage-bolts had been bad enough, although he’d dismissed Abigor’s more
colorful descriptions as being part of his alibi for defeat. But he’d never
mentioned strange winds and patterns in the sky. The idea hardly had time to
form in his mind before the explosions that were shattering his army along the
banks of the Phlegethon shifted back to engulf a new zone and spread their
death toll amongst another portion of his Army. Beelzebub looked at the carnage
forming on the ground in front of him and knew that Abigor hadn’t lied, if
anything he had understated the truth. He’d mentioned the human mage bolts that
struck from afar and devastated the ground but he’d never said anything about a
concentration of magery like this.

Combat
Group, Northern Front, Phlegethon River Bulge, Hell

Hertonymarkess
felt himself staggering under the sheer impact of noise and the crushing power
the explosions that were all around him. He couldn’t think straight, every time
a thought tried to form in his mind, the terrible screams and explosions drove
it away or entered his head and shredded it. Screams, they dominated even the
explosions, the battle cry of the human mages as their mage-bolts slammed into
the army, the screams of the demons and Beasts as they were torn apart and died.
He couldn’t hold his trident properly either, the shaking was too much. The
ground was heaving and rolling under his feet, in ways Hell had not experienced
since the great earthquakes a few millennia ago. The little quakes, the ones
Hell experienced every day had nothing on the destruction the human magery was
causing.

Yet
Hertonymarkess knew that the magery was only part of the shaking that was
causing his problems. The rest was his own muscles, shivering with fear of the
mage-bolts. An enemy, even a human, was not something he feared. If there was a
human in front of him now, he could have fought and, win or lose, fought
ferociously. It wasn’t the prospect of fighting that was terrifying him at all.
It was the human’s ability to deliver remote-controlled death. For, there was
nothing to fight here, the humans were still far away and their mage bolts just
pounded the target, administering death and destruction at random. There was
nothing Hertonymarkess could do about it, his skills, his courage, his training,
his spirit mattered nothing. All that mattered was the pure blind chance of
whether he and his combat team would be standing where the next mage bolt, or
dozen, landed. It was that utter helplessness in the face of random, pitiless
fate that was so terrifying.