Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (60 page)

Time slowed as
the body in Kaelus’s claws went limp and a faint flicker appeared at the
creature’s chest. A transparent hand, normal and human in appearance, emerged
from the body and was quickly followed by an arm, then a head as the mortal
man’s soul emerged and freed itself from the twisted confines of his captivity.
The specter stared in piteous joy at Kaelus for a moment and reached a hand
toward him, then an unfelt wind swept past and the soul disappeared. The empty
shell crumbled to dust in Kaelus’s hands.

Kaelus spoke
more loudly then, and he repeated what he’d just told the soul – no longer
damned, but free. His voice carried and was heard by every being on the
battlefield who was or had once been mortal. His words touched the very nature
of their existence, but they carried a message so profound it went beyond
anything that could ever be said. He did not just tell them words, he told them
Truth
, and one by one they all received his gift and believed.

First a dozen,
then a hundred souls freed themselves from the twisted existence to which they
had been condemned, shackled by their own belief and unknowing choice. Hundreds
became thousands, and in one glorious moment, the air was thick with the souls
of men and women who stared about them in joy until an ethereal wind carried
them away. The bodies left behind, twisted and misshapen as they were, crumbled
to dust until all of the damned had been freed.

The demons
stared in stunned disbelief, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
Kaelus’s words had been only for mortal ears, and the demons had heard nothing
beyond his initial proclamation. They fell back and stared with terrified awe
at the figure of Kaelus, who radiated a power unlike any they had ever felt.

At their
greatest moment of disarray and confusion, Uriel arrived and struck with the
force of Heavenly wrath.

Half of the
Archangels flew almost touching the ground and swept up into the air,
unleashing a triple volley of arrows that felled every demon within a dozen
yards of the besieged elves. The others descended a moment later from the
clouds above and emptied the sky of demons, who had been left vulnerable
without the flights of damned souls to shield them.

Taking advantage
of the situation, Kaelus bellowed the order for a charge, and the elves surged
forward with surprising vigor and speed. Birch ran full out and even laughed
with the sheer joy of still being alive, and as they plowed into the
disorganized ranks of the demons, he struck with renewed strength.

Drolkuls and
balrogs, gremlins and imps, all fell before the piercing wedge of the
Elan’Vital as they drove toward the heart of the demon force. With Uriel and
the Archangels providing additional support from the air, they made quick
headway as the demons put up little resistance and even began to flee in
terror.

In the distance,
Birch caught sight of two blue-skinned, humanoid demons hovering naked in the
air, their leathery, black wings holding them aloft with steady strokes.

“Azazel and
Succubus,”
Kaelus kythed to Birch.
“I never expected to find them
leading these troops. He is as cowardly as he is foolishly brazen, depending on
the tide of the battle, and Succubus is no better.”

“Why then are
they waiting there for us?”
Birch wondered.
“Their forces are on the
run.”

“Beware a
trap,”
Kaelus replied.

No sooner had
the thought reached Birch’s mind than the ground in front of him erupted as a
massive drolkul sprang from the cloudy earth. The demon’s flesh was sheathed in
what Birch realized was a second skin made from the flesh of the damned, which
apparently gave the demon some protection against the effects of Heaven’s
touch. It seemed Arthryx had left some of his twisted innovations behind.

Drolkuls
appeared all around the elves and even behind them, and a dozen of the
Elan’Vital were overwhelmed and torn to pieces before they could properly
regroup and defend themselves. Overhead, waves of black arrows fell from the
sky, but the Archangels quickly scrambled and avoided most of the missiles.
Some fell to strike the elves below, and those who were struck crumpled to the
ground and writhed in pain.

Selti screeched
piercingly and spiraled to the ground, his wings a bloody mess of torn,
blackened flesh. Perklet’s mount wasn’t far behind, and it crashed to the
ground in an even worse condition atop a small cluster of demons and knocked
them all sprawling.

Azazel screamed
orders from his aerial vantage, gesticulating wildly to his forces. Clouds of
demons swarmed angels, who disappeared screaming as they were engulfed by the
murderous packs of their eternal foes. An oversized platoon of childris crawled
out of a cavern of flesh opened in the ground and immediately launched an
assault on the elves. They came at Birch, who felt his blood run cold at the
sight of so many of the mantis-like demons. Black spears tore into the elven
ranks and knocked men back with the force of the impact.

Siran shouted,
“Elan’Vital!
Tomain
ilith
childeris
do’alianori
!”
[30]

The elves cried
out wordlessly in response and attacked with a speed and skill Birch had never
before seen. Their weapons blurred and were all but invisible, and the elves
themselves moved almost as quickly. Still the childris came, but now their
deadly assault was met with an equally lethal fervor, and they made little
headway against the elves. Kaelus incinerated two childris with balls of azure
fire and sent another screeching in retreat as blue flames slowly ate through
the demon’s carapace.

Again, though,
Birch felt the circle of their defenses tightening ever so slowly as elves were
brought down by their foes. Every demon slain was replaced an instant later in
a seemingly endless stream of unholy monsters, while every elf who fell left
the circle that much smaller. Birch saw that inevitably they would fail, and even
the might of Kaelus could never prevail against so many.

As if thinking
of the demon summoned him, Birch felt a pulsing heat on one side and saw that
Kaelus had joined the fray beside him.

“If we can
push near enough to Azazel, I might be able to reach him with a bit of fire and
drive him off,”
Kaelus told Birch.
“Follow me, and bring the elves.”

“Siran!” Birch
shouted as he fell in behind the demon. Kaelus waded into the press of demonic
foes and ripped to shreds those who, eons ago, he might have once called
brother. Most of the demons moved out of his way, but a few of the more
powerful fiends tried to stand against him and were unfailingly hurled aside,
torn apart, or burned to ash. Siran charged at Birch’s side, and the elves of
the Elan’Vital fought in a desperate cluster to follow in the demon’s wake.

A wall of blue
flame sprang up before the horned demon and bent into a wedge that he drove
before him, incinerating lesser demons and scattering their more powerful
brethren. Kaelus began to pick up speed, plowing headlong into the press of
demons and carving a path with his plow of blue flame. His goal, Azazel,
remained hovering where they had last seen him, his naked paramour at his side,
and both demons looked alarmed at their rapidly approaching foe. Kaelus was
just beginning to make headway when – in mid-stride – he cried out wordlessly
in pain, twisted awkwardly, and slammed shoulder-first into the cloudy earth.

The wall of
flames died as the demon struck the ground.

Birch saw the gleam
of a blue, angelic arrow embedded in Kaelus’s right calf and stared in
confusion. The arrow had struck with such power that the head had passed
through Kaelus’s leg and was visible on the other side.

Angels never
miss,
he thought idly, unable to understand what he was seeing.

Howling in glee,
powerful demons leapt atop the fallen Kaelus and slashed with their claws,
tearing into his flesh and eliciting bellows of pain from the trapped demon.
Kaelus reared back once, arms spread defiantly as he hurled demons from his
back, but weakened as he was with an angelic arrow piercing his leg, Kaelus was
crushed to the ground again by the sheer press of demons who leapt back atop
him. Birch waded into the fray, swinging his sword in wide arcs to cut a path
to Kaelus. A childris charged forward and knocked Birch sprawling, but the
demon was cut down by Siran before it could reach Kaelus. Birch’s head spun as
he rolled on the ground, blood streaming down his face from a gash on his
forehead.

Alone, the elven
captain cleared a space above Kaelus, who lay on the ground unmoving. Siran
stood warily over the fallen demon and tried to keep an eye on every direction
at once as he guarded his charge.

“Touch him, and
I will destroy you,” Siran said in a low voice. He was covered in the blood of
his men and his own crimson life seeped slowly from a hundred minor wounds, but
he cut such an imposing figure that for a moment no one moved.

One drolkul,
more foolish than the rest, lurched forward and was immediately beheaded. Another
tried to attack Siran from behind, but the elven warrior spun and used the
demon’s momentum to hurl him into his fellows. Before he passed beyond Siran’s
reach, the elf lopped off both of the demon’s clawed feet.

Birch struggled
to clear the dizziness in his head, but before he could move, powerful demonic
arms encircled him. Four arms held him fast and prevented him from applying any
leverage he might use to free himself. Even were Birch to call on his
demon-enhanced strength, he knew enough about wrestling to know the drolkul
could hold him fast with little effort. Birch could just make out a large
flight of angels – all that remained of the Archangels – soaring down from the
skies, but they were too far away and were intercepted by a churning cloud of
aerial demons.

The crowd of
demons parted to allow a pair of naked, human-looking demons to approach.
Azazel and Succubus were covered with fire-blooded claw marks that looked
self-inflicted, and there was an unholy, carnal glow about them that made Birch
recoil. The drolkul holding him rumbled in laughter.

Azazel stepped
forward and Siran immediately attacked, lunging with his halven to spear the
leather-winged demon in the chest. The weapon was marked with the holy
Tricrus
and had slain hundreds of lesser demons, but still it shattered on the demon
prince’s flesh as though he’d struck a mountain.

Siran fell back
and stared in disbelief at the broken blade of his weapon, which he
nevertheless held at the ready as the demonic pair strode forward.

“The mighty
Kaelus,” Azazel said mockingly as he looked down at the fallen demon. He
ignored Siran completely. “Mephistopheles will reward us well for returning
you.”

Succubus knelt
beside him and reached out to grasp the black shackles on Kaelus’s left wrist.
Siran leapt forward and was immediately thrown back as Azazel swept one
leathery wing and brushed the elf aside like a stray leaf. The demoness gripped
the manacle and whispered a few words in the immortal tongue, and suddenly both
she and Kaelus disappeared.

“Kill as many of
the mortals as necessary, but do try to take some of them alive,” Azazel
ordered nonchalantly. “We’ll have some sport this evening.”

“Uriel, get
out of here!”
Birch thought frantically as clawed hands wrenched his arms
behind him.
“No heroics. Go!”

The Elan’Vital
leapt to the defense of their captain, but the demons closed in and ruthlessly
cut them down. Some of the elves were hauled away and subdued. Without the
protection and support of Kaelus, the remaining elves stood no chance against such
overwhelming numbers. The circle of the living slowly shrank until it was
swallowed in a sea of demonic flesh.

Birch witnessed
none of this. With Azazel’s demand for captives, the drolkul holding him struck
Birch across the back of his head and darkness claimed him.

History may record Camael among the worst of traitors,
and I cannot dispute this claim of infamy – so long as he is remembered first
and foremost among the greatest and most loyal in all the Heavenly Hosts.

- Uriel,

“Collected Accounts from the
Pandemonium War”

- 1 -

James Tarmin
looked at the aftermath of the battle and allowed himself a moment of
satisfaction. True, the odds had been stacked in their favor, but less than a
hundred paladins had been seriously injured and none had been lost. The Greens
were hard at work repairing the injuries too grievous to be healed by the
afflicted man himself, and a large tent had been hastily erected to shelter
those who were already in a healing sleep. A hundred yards away, the air
shimmered slightly as he looked directly into the cleft that housed the
Binding.

A swirl of blue
color caught his eye as someone approached on his right side.

“Feeling better,
Nuse?” James asked without looking.

“Much,” the
elderly Blue paladin replied. “I think that Green even managed to get rid of
some of the arthritis that’s been slowing my shoulder lately. If only they
could heal advancing age.”

“God wants you
bald, my friend,” James said with a smile, “and there’s nothing you can do
about it.”

“Not the hair,
it’s the rest of the body. I don’t mind the hair loss, I expect it at my age,”
Nuse said. “I mind that it started so damn early. A man shouldn’t start shining
back at the moons while he’s still in his thirties. You have no idea how hard
it was to find women my own age who’d actually believe
I
was my own
age.”

James chuckled.

“I had the same
problem, just in reverse,” James said. “Barkeeps asked where my parents were
until I was almost a paladin. Thank God I’d grown a beard by the time I met
Tabitha, or else she’d have spanked me as soon as kissed me. She made me shave
it off after our second date, but it had already served its purpose.”