Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (57 page)

He reached out
and drew Perklet into a rough embrace.

“Thank you, my
brother.”

They parted, and
Perklet smiled shyly as Birch looked past him out toward the ongoing battle.

“Why did they
suddenly change tactics?” Birch asked in frustration, and Perklet saw a flare
of fire deep in his eyes. His anger was not completely gone, just controlled.
“What’s different?”

“They had to
change sometime, Birch,” Perklet said simply. “Even I understand that much
about battle. Nothing’s absolute.”

Birch’s face
abruptly drained of all color, and he whispered, “Absolute” with the voice of
someone who’s just realized something momentous – or terrifying.

“What is it?”
Perklet asked, concerned.

“Get back inside
and get everyone moving,” Birch said hoarsely. “I’m giving the order to
retreat. We need to get out of here, and I need to go see Kaelus immediately.”

Perklet had
never seen such an expression on Birch’s face, and he didn’t have the words to
describe it. Despite everything he’d just seen and experienced in confronting
the Gray paladin, Perklet was far more disturbed by what he was seeing now.

The final test of a leader is what he leaves behind
him.

- Orange Paladin Janek
jo’Baerth,

“A History of War” (969 AM)

- 1 -

Strike, then fade
away. Those were the orders given to Shadow Company, and they followed them
carefully. With a platoon of angels providing air support, Garnet led his
denarae warriors in a carefully coordinated attack on the advance wave of
damned souls. The second, larger body of foes was some distance behind, and the
denarae unit’s rapid withdrawal looked as though they’d suddenly realized there
were more foes than they could handle, so they beat a speedy retreat. Angels
swooped down and lifted them to freedom and safety.

They deposited
the denarae unit near a small village of tents built around one large, central
command tent, and they immediately disappeared inside as their heavenly escort
flew back to the skies above. Another flight of angels was already in-bound, and
they landed to take up defensive positions around the tents while their
brethren formed in careful lines in the air. The angels drew their bows and
nocked arrows of shining power, waiting only for the order to attack.

Clouds of winged
demons and damned souls rose from the ground and swooped forward, eager for the
attack. On the ground, tens of thousands of monstrous creatures charged with
reckless abandon. They surged forward like a tide of evil, ready to crash down
on the vastly outnumbered angels before them.

“Aerial archers,
strafe the ground ranks, disrupt their lines,” a flying Power called to his
aerial archers as he drew a bead on a drolkul lumbering behind a platoon of
damned souls.

On the ground,
another Power spoke to the land-based archers. “Bring those infernal hellions
out of the skies. Work together, pick off clusters, and drive them into each
other. I want chaos up there!”

Angels drew back
on their bows and took careful aim. Together, the two angelic commanders
shouted, “Loose!” and hundreds of gleaming arrows struck with perfect aim,
crossing in the sky as ground attacked air and vice versa. Creatures plummeted
from the skies and crashed into the ranks of their fellows on the ground,
further disrupting the charging horde as demons and damned souls fell to the
angels’ first volley.

“Draw! Loose!”
Another volley. “Draw! Loose!” Another. Another.

The demons’
ranks began to thin drastically as they surged forward, and only a fraction of
the original force reached the angels to press their attack.

“Charge!” the
Powers commanded, and the two forces of angels surged forward to meet their
immortal foes.

Moments before
the two armies clashed, a storm of black-fletched arrows fell from the clouds
above and sliced through the ranks of the angels with lethal efficiency. The
angels’ charge faltered, and then it was too late as the demons swept over them
in a wave of infernal fury.

Concealed in a
nearby cave, Uriel watched the surprise attack and started swearing, a habit
he’d recently acquired thanks to the mortal company he’d been keeping, he was
sure. He glanced at the Power crouched next to him.

“Camael, take
half the Archangels and find those archers,” Uriel ordered. “I’ll follow with
the rest if you need reinforcements, but if you can handle it, leave me free to
act elsewhere.”

Camael nodded
and leapt skyward, Archangels trailing in his wake.

Labored
breathing brought Uriel’s attention to the cave behind him, where Garnet was
leaning on his father as the two men approached.

“Twisted my
ankle,” Garnet said in response to Uriel’s questioning glance. “We’re all safe,
if a little winded. Nobody lost during the strike.”

“Good,” Uriel
replied, pleased. “And Mikal? The plugs?”

“He pulled them
while we were still on our way out,” Garnet said as a Parasim knelt at his side
to heal his ankle. “We had to run to keep our feet dry.”

Uriel chuckled
in spite of the gravity of their situation. Their trap was perilous, but if
they were fortunate, it just might bring down a demon prince.

“And your men,
Garet?” Uriel asked.

“Ready to strike
when you give the word,” the Red paladin replied. “They’re mounted and ready to
go airborne at a moment’s notice.”

“Excellent. Now,
if we can just…”

“Dear God, what
in San’s name is
that
?” Garet asked, pointing over Uriel’s shoulder.

Uriel spun and
stared mutely as a winged monstrosity broke through the clouds. Nothing so huge
could possibly fly, and yet the
thing
moved ponderously through the air
under its own power and wreaked havoc on the airborne angels. There was no
discernable head, but a large, bulbous body made up the bulk of the creature,
and four massive wings spanned over a hundred yards on each side. The whole
thing was encased in black-steel plating, and waves of arrows bounced off the
mammoth without any noticeable effect.

Hundreds of
tentacles – easily more than half a thousand – each forty feet or more in
length, snaked out and attacked any angel unfortunate enough to fly too near
the thing. Flights of demons swirled around the creature and herded angels
closer, where they were easy prey to the flying behemoth.

“It looks like
Arthryx left us a memento before he died,” Garnet said grimly.

“We can’t fight
that thing!” Garet whispered.

Garnet turned to
his father. “Get the paladins ready, they’re taking Shadow Company airborne. Get
us up there, dad, and we’ll find a way to bring that damned thing down.”

He glanced at
Uriel.

“Go, and God be
with you,” Uriel said. He turned back toward the battle, and a voice suddenly sounded
at the edge of his consciousness. Kaelus was contacting him directly. Uriel
felt a freezing sensation in the center of his chest as he absorbed the demon’s
words.

- 2 -

Birch led a
small force away from the main body of his army, which he’d placed under the
command of Tristrael, a Dominion who often commanded the angels when Uriel’s
duties took him away from the army with his Archangels. Tristrael led the
survivors on a retreat toward Medina, moving only as quickly as he dared to
stay ahead of the demons snapping at his heels. Move too quickly, and it meant
that much more ground lost before Uriel returned to erect a new fortress,
bringing the demons that much closer to the holy city.

In the meantime,
Birch detoured to Kaelus’s command tent, which had finally moved on from Dem’s
forge and was now in the middle of nowhere. Of course, as Perklet had wryly
suggested, that pretty much described most of Heaven. It took them only two
days to reach the mobile command post, thanks to the distance-shrinking abilities
of a pair of Erelim Birch had commandeered temporarily. When Kaelus’s tent was
in sight, Birch sent the pair off to rejoin the main body of troops.

“We need to
talk, Kaelus,” Birch said as soon as he saw the demon commander. The demon took
one look at the determination on his face and didn’t bother asking why the Gray
paladin had left his post. Birch nodded a greeting to Siran, then followed
Kaelus into his tent. Perklet followed quietly, and a stone-faced Siran took up
guard outside their tent alongside two armored Cherubim already in place.

“The attack at
the other site is about to begin,” Kaelus told them, gesturing toward a map.
His frustration was evident from the circle of azure flames winding around his
horns. “I don’t think I’ll hear much once it begins, so for the next while all
I can do is sit in agony waiting to hear the outcome. I hate being so far
removed from something so important.”

Kaelus bared his
sharpened teeth in frustration, and the flames that wreathed his ebony horns
moved a bit more rapidly. He finally turned from the map and looked inquiringly
at Birch.

“But I welcome
your company here. What was it you need?” the demon asked.

“An absolute,”
Birch said intently. Kaelus regarded him silently. “There is an absolute
determinant of good and evil, separate from God and Satan, isn’t there.” To
Perklet’s ears, it really wasn’t a question.

“You came here
to discuss philosophy?” Kaelus rumbled incredulously. “Now?”

“Just answer
me.”

“Yes,” the demon
replied, “they are separate. Satan Himself once asked me where evil came from,
and the answer that finally satisfied Him was, ‘nowhere, it just is,’ and in
time I came to realize the truth of it. The same is true of goodness.”

“An act,
thought, or intent is evil or good in itself, not because God or Satan condones
or condemns it,” Birch said.

“In so many
words, yes,” Kaelus answered. “A few minds have speculated along those lines
over the eons, but by and large everyone believes this is not so, that
whatsoever things are good, they come directly from God, and vice versa from
Satan.”

“Then what is
the determinant of that morality?” Birch demanded. “Why is one thing evil and
another good? What force, what will, sorted every act and thought into these
two categories? Who or what conceived of the moral concepts?”

Kaelus stared at
him, and the blue flames on his horns raced about furiously as the demon’s
thoughts churned. Perklet could almost see the workings of the demon’s mind
spinning about as he pondered Birch’s question. Finally, in a moment so obvious
and profound Perklet wondered that the earth didn’t shake, Kaelus’s eyes
widened and surmounting flames stilled and blazed fiercely.

“That’s the
answer,” the demon rumbled in an awed whisper. The blue flames in his eyes
flared, and Perklet instinctively threw a hand up as though expecting to be
incinerated. “That’s what He was leading me to understand. Now I remember.”

“What’s the
answer?” Birch demanded intently. “You see something; you see some truth. Tell
me.”

Instead of
answering, Kaelus asked, “Where did mortal souls go before the Epiphany?”

“What?” Birch
asked, nonplussed. “What does that have to do with…”

“Everything,”
the demon said, cutting him short. “That is the answer to your question,
Birch.” He looked up at Birch, their eyes of blue and crimson flame locked on
each other. “Think back to the Barrier War and those damned souls that were
captured. They didn’t want to fight, they were trying to avoid the war, and you
defended them. And then what happened?”

“I don’t know
exactly,” Birch said in frustration. “You took control of my body, and I was
all but devoid of my senses.”

“The souls
disappeared,” Perklet answered quietly. Eyes of azure and crimson fire turned
to regard him, and Perklet swallowed heavily before continuing. “I saw it from
a distance. Kaelus came out of you like a red smoke, and he bellowed something
in the immortal tongue. Ghosts came out of the damned beasts then, ghosts in
the shapes of men and women. They vanished, and the bodies crumbled to dust.”

“Those were the
true forms of their immortal souls,” Kaelus said, smiling in obvious pleasure
at Perklet’s recollection. “I acted on instinct, and I myself didn’t understand
what I did that day, not until now. You know our original way of communicating
was pure thought, and even the immortal language carries more meaning when
spoken between two immortals as their thoughts convey depths and breadths
beyond mere words. I spoke in the immortal tongue and conveyed something more
than the words I spoke. I spoke of choice and of freedom, and of another
existence that awaited them if they could only believe in their own free will.”

“You freed them
to Heaven?” Perklet asked.

“No, Green
paladin, I freed them to something beyond both Heaven and Hell,” Kaelus
responded intently. “Mark this well, both of you – this is something so
important it seems Shaitan Himself had a hand in helping me to understand it,
but yet hid the knowledge from me. This place, this
thing…
it is
everything and nothing all at once, a form of existence so far beyond our comprehension
there are no words or thoughts to truly describe it in
any
language. It
is the source of all creation and the end to which everything returns. It is
neither good nor evil, and yet it encompasses both of these polar opposites in
perfect harmony.

“In the
beginning, before the Epiphany, mortal souls did not simply vanish into
nothingness, they rejoined the Absolute from which all creation sprang,” the
demon said. “It was only after the Epiphany that mortals began going to Heaven
and Hell as an afterlife, and only because they
believed
that it should
be so. The power of mortal free will is so strong, it lasts beyond death and
carries your souls to a place they were never intended to go. Were it not for
that belief, the damned souls would be free of Hell, Heaven would be barren of
the blessed dead, and souls would be free to rejoin the Absolute. The origin of
all existence, even God and Shaitan.