Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (56 page)

 “Perhaps
in the reason why the Throne stands empty and always has since the early days
of Creation, when last we stood in His presence. I’ve often wondered why He has
left us alone, with no sign of His presence since that day. There may not be an
answer, at least not for one such as I, but I am beginning to have faith.”

“We exist,
and we follow. We KNOW the will of God as no others can, for we are the
embodiment of His will. I ask you, with such knowledge, what is faith?”

“I don’t know,
Maya,” Mikal answered, “but I believe Kaelus is beginning to understand things
none of us ever has. I have seen it in him, brewing like a storm waiting to be
unleashed. It isn’t his power that I follow, it’s his clarity of purpose. His
destiny. It shines from him so brilliantly I wonder that I’m not struck blind.
I have faith in what he represents. I trust, so that I might understand.”

“Foolishness.”

Mikal laughed
out loud. “That may be, but I’ve seen that even fools can be on the path of
truth. Sometimes they see it more clearly than those of us who know so much
more and understand so much less.”

“More and
more, you speak like the mortals. You, at least, are becoming more like them in
thought and action. It is sad to see one so great fall so far.”

“You must be
standing upside down, Maya. I’m not falling, I’m rising so much further than
you can possibly imagine,” Mikal said, and he wondered why he sounded so much
like the old human Trames.

“Farewell,
Mikal. We’ll not speak again until the time of my ascension is at hand. For
your sake, I truly hope you survive to witness my triumphant return. Know that
I will hold no grudge, for when the time comes, I will see your repentance and
smile as you return to the true will of God.”

“Farewell,
Maya,” Mikal murmured sadly.

- 4 -

Perklet slumped
against the wall wearily. He’d spent the last five hours healing his brother
paladins and sending them back out to fight. One out of every four came back
within an hour, and one in ten came back as members of the blessed dead. Many
of the newly dead stopped by to thank Perklet for his earlier efforts, then
left to continue fighting even in death. It was enough to drive a man mad if he
let it get to him.

“I won’t let it
get to me,” Perklet whispered to himself. “I’ll heal those who need healing,
and that’s it. I won’t think about it. I’ll do my duty, this gift from God, and
heal my brothers. Heal them.”

Perklet repeated
these words, “Heal them,” over and over, trying to drown out the thoughts and
doubts crowding his mind.

I healed men
today without praying for them. I was too tired to think straight. It’s
happened before, but still they were healed. Did I do it myself, without asking
God for His blessing? No, God heard my desires unvoiced and healed them anyway.
Healing comes from God, of course.

“Then why don’t
I believe myself?” Perklet whispered in despair. “Because I’ve felt and
experienced something different than what I was taught? I healed men before I
ever became a paladin. I know I did. Could Trames be right? Who am I to
question the teachings of the Prism?”

He stumbled
through the halls, his thoughts in disarray. Other Green paladins were handling
the injured, so Perklet had granted himself a brief respite from healing. What
had he told the others? Oh yes, he was going outside to check with Birch if there
were any wounded who hadn’t been carried down yet.

Perklet stepped
outside and gasped. The sky, always overcast, was now a dark, stormy gray, and
it choked off the light across the horizon and cast the front of the citadel in
shadow. He had seen such a phenomenon before, but only after days of fighting
when the demons were on the verge of overrunning them. Never had the sky
darkened so quickly on the first day of battle.

A chill feeling
of doom swept over Perklet, and he shivered in spite of himself. Angels and
flying demons battled overhead in immortal fury, but the ledge Perklet had
walked out upon was empty of angels and demons alike. A handful of paladins –
Perklet couldn’t tell from this distance if they were alive or dead – stood at
the edge of the ramparts, waiting to defend against any foe.

“Perky!” a harsh
voice called from above. “What are you doing out here?”

The Green
paladin looked up and saw Birch sitting astride Selti, who was clinging to the
outer wall of the fortress in his full-sized dakkan shape some twenty feet
above Perklet. The Gray paladin’s eyes blazed with crimson flames as he looked
down from his perch.

“I… I was…”

Selti released
his hold on the rocks and dropped down to land beside Perklet. Birch slipped from
his saddle and landed gracefully on the battlements. He had an angelic bow in
his left hand, which he hung on the side of Selti’s saddle.

“Is something
wrong?” Birch asked him urgently. The Gray paladin’s face was drawn in harsh
angles of anger and concern. His eyes smoldered, and Perklet resisted the urge
to step back. There was something almost sinister about Birch’s ill-concealed
frustration.

“What’s going on
out here?” Perklet asked, looking at the sky again.

“The demons are
attacking full force, and they’re grinding us to dust,” Birch said grimly. “It
looked like their standard assault pattern, but within the first hour they
started changing their tactics, never letting us have a moment to breathe or
adapt.”

Perklet noticed
a deep gash on Birch’s left hand and motioned for the other paladin to turn and
accept his healing. Perklet reached forward hesitantly. The demon that had
bonded to Birch’s soul made him uneasy, but Birch was his friend, so Perklet
gritted his teeth, grasped the wound, and began a healing prayer.

“We’re killing
them in greater numbers than ever before,” Birch went on, “but it just isn’t
enough. Something’s changed here, and I don’t have a damned clue what or why.”

“Shouldn’t we
retreat then?” Perklet asked in confusion. He frowned at the wound. His healing
hadn’t affected the injury at all.

“No,” Birch said
harshly. “We can hold them, we just need more time.”

“But…”

“No buts,
Perklet,” Birch cut him off. He jerked his arm away and spared only an
irritated glance at his unhealed wound. “This is warfare. Battle. If you don’t
have any business here, I need you back in the infirmary tending the wounded
and getting them back out here.”

Perklet’s
normally gentle face firmed, and he tilted his head angrily as he glared at
Birch. The Gray paladin drew his sword and turned back toward Selti, preparing
to mount again.

“If Uriel were
here, he’d have already called the retreat, knowing he couldn’t hold this
place,” Perklet chided him.

Birch spun to
face him.

“I almost wish
he
was
here. I could have used his strength here today, but Uriel would
have already retreated, giving this place up and admitting failure without ever
testing or trusting his strength,” Birch bit back angrily. “We have the
strength to hold them longer, if we just have the will to back it up.”

 “Birch, we
can’t hold against numbers like that, and you know it,” Perklet said with as
much force as he could muster.

“Yes we can!”
Birch replied angrily. The flames in his eyes flared, and Perklet imagined he
felt a wave of heat sweep over him.

“Birch, give up
this meaningless hunk of rock and save your men!” Perklet pleaded. “Our goal is
not to hold, it’s to slow them and save as many as possible. Allow defeat today
and…”

 “NO!”
Birch screamed and swept his sword high in anger. Perklet recoiled and raised a
hand to defend himself, but instead of attacking him, Birch drove his sword
into the ground and buried half of the blade in the pristine white stone. He
stood and glared at Perklet.

“We are soldiers
of God, the bearers of the light. They are demon-spawned filth from Hell,”
Birch shouted, “and yet we flee before them like cowards instead of facing them
down and instilling the fear of God in these, our most unholy of foes. We hold,
we retreat. They advance, they destroy. If I thought we could hold
indefinitely, I would hold us here until the stones crumbled around our heads
before I yielded to those Sin-cursed spawn of Satan. As it is, we must hold at
least a few days before we
retreat
,” he spat the word, “and start again.
Every day we hold them is another day they do not advance, another day they do
not spread their filth.

“We must hold,
and we will hold
here
,” Birch pointed accusingly at the blade protruding
from the angelstone fortress.

“I didn’t crawl
from the dungeons of Hell and escape the clutches of the demon king just to
cower and retreat at the first push of force like some spineless beast. I will
face the curs who growl and bare their teeth and send them yelping back to
their master in fear,” Birch went on, his fists clenched at his sides. Red
flame erupted from between his fingers, and Perklet saw the flickering of
leathery wings behind him as the demon within Birch began to manifest…
physically, at least. Perklet feared it was already present in other ways.

“I don’t care if
I have to fly down there and face them all by myself, I will not withdraw until
I have no other choice.”

Perklet stared
at Birch in fear and even sorrow. He’d always looked up to Birch, and now
suddenly the man he respected most was losing himself in an inhuman display of
irrational anger driven by well-concealed desperation and despair. An Erelim
crashed into the wall above them and tumbled to the ground. He landed a few
yards away, then immediately got to his feet and jumped back into the air. Neither
Perklet nor Birch spared the immortal a glance or thought.

“Is this even
about the war anymore, Birch?” Perklet asked sadly. More than anything, he
thought it was the sorrow in his voice that brought Birch up short. The Gray
paladin stared at him with his burning eyes, but was silent. His wings ceased
to flicker and disappeared entirely, but Birch’s fists were still wreathed with
crimson flame.

“You know better
than to think you can hold this fortress, Birch, I know you do,” Perklet
pleaded. “Those demons hurt you, I know, and I understand the temptation to
want to stand up to them and even hurt them back. It’s agony giving in to those
who’ve hurt you before, but think of the men and the angels who look to you for
leadership. Are you going to drag them down into hopeless battle and sacrifice
them for your bruised ego?”

“It’s not about
ego, Perky,” Birch began with some heat, but Perklet cut him off.

“But it is,
Birch, it is,” Perklet said. “You said it yourself:
you
crawled from the
deepest pits of Hell. You’ve slain more demons than any ten men, and you’ve
perhaps done more than any mortal in the history of man. You even survived
death! There’s nothing you can’t do, you’re
invincible
. That’s how I
looked at you for a time, and I even wanted to be like you, so strong and
capable.

“But your anger
is feeding a dangerous self-righteousness that’s poisoning you,” Perklet said
passionately. “Maybe it’s the demon growing inside you, maybe it’s just a
natural result of everything you’ve been through. Whatever it is, it’s not who
you are, and you have to see that. There are countless men, both alive and
dead, who are depending on you right now to see them through to safety, but
they trust you so much they’ll die for you if you give the order to hold this
fortress. If you give that order, you sentence them to death and destruction,
and there is no other possible outcome. They’ll follow you, and so will I, but
deep down you know that ordering us to stay even a moment longer is a betrayal
of that trust. Fighting a battle that’s already lost isn’t courage, it’s
foolhardiness, and a Red paladin should know that better than a Green.”

Perklet locked
eyes with Birch, but for once he didn’t break eye contact. Instead, he bored in,
allowing the images of pain and torture to wash over him, granting him some
measure of understanding to what Birch had gone through.

“But you’re not
just a Red paladin anymore, Birch,” Perklet said, his voice trembling as the
barrage of torturous images continued. “You were a White paladin of beauty, the
pinnacle of our virtues, but I’m afraid you’re losing yourself in being the
Gray paladin. Have the courage to face when you’re wrong, and strive for
justice over your need for vengeance.”

Flames seared flesh
in a memory of agony. “Temper your hatred with wisdom and the knowledge within
you, and trust in your faith as a man of God.”

A black tower
appeared, and the tower meant pain, worse than anything he’d ever imagined.
“Above all, you need to love the men in your command more than your own
desires.”

At last, the
images stopped and Perklet slumped wearily. He looked earnestly into Birch’s
eyes, and there were no further images of anguish.

“You once
stopped your nephew from descending into the pit of hatred and becoming a Black
paladin,” Perklet whispered. “Let me do the same for you now, Birch. Please
listen to me and believe.”

Birch clenched
his eyes shut, and his face tightened as though fighting some inner pain. When
the flames disappeared from his hands, Perklet began to hope. Finally, some of
the tension fled Birch’s body, and he opened his eyes to regard Perklet.

“God bless you,
Perklet,” Birch said wearily. “You may have just saved my soul.”

He closed his
eyes and shuddered.

“You’re right,
of course, Perky,” Birch said, opening his eyes and regarding the Green paladin
calmly. He was once more the self-controlled man Perklet had grown to admire so
much. “I don’t know how I lost sight of my duty, but I’m grateful you had the
courage to face me with it.”