Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (65 page)

“How long will
it take us to reach the camp, Doriel?” Gerard asked.

“Impossible to
say,” the angel replied. “Uriel is compressing the time and distance far better
than I can, and the best I could manage would be a day and a half at maximum
speed. Uriel will most likely manage it within a few hours.”

“Good thing you
boys don’t get tired,” Gerard grumbled. “Handled all the logistics just fine,
but I never thought I’d have to worry about boredom.”

“Want to hear a
joke?” the Dominion asked after a few minutes’ silence.

“Sure,” Gerard
replied.
A joke-telling angel? What’s next, a demon suffering from
depression?

“How many gnomes
does it take to create something that works right the first time?”

“How many?”

“We don’t know.
God can’t count that high, and the world’s still waiting for it to happen once.”

Gerard laughed
appreciatively. “Alright, Doriel, how’s this one for you – how many Dominion
angels are there in Heaven?”

“I assume you
don’t want an actual answer.”

“Shut up and
play along,” Gerard growled. It seemed humor would take some doing with certain
angels. Still, this was an improvement over the generally subdued Powers.

“Very well. How
many?”

“I’m not sure,
but I’ve met at least three of Dem.”

Doriel laughed
heartily.

The Dominion
told Gerard a string of jokes he’d collected over the eons, and only half of
them were too obscure for the dead paladin to understand. Gradually, they both
stopped talking and cruised in a silence broken only by the beating of the
angel’s four moss-colored wings. As they crossed into the lands held by the
demons, the sky grew dark and stormy, and the cloud cover roiled about them
like a tempest seconds away from releasing its torrential wrath. The light from
Doriel’s wings made the dark, cloudy air glow with a verdant luminescence, and
Gerard thought of it as a sort of beacon for the others to follow.

With no frame of
reference for time or distance, Gerard had no idea how long they were airborne
before Doriel announced they had reached their destination.

“All of the
angels are coordinated?” Gerard asked.

“Ready for your
orders,” Doriel replied. “We arrive in T-minus one minute.”

“Listen in for
my command, and get ready to unleash Hell… well, Heaven, I should say.”

Doriel chuckled.
Gerard ticked off the seconds in his head, counting down.

“Halo Company,
launch!” Gerard cried, and Doriel passed the word back through the angels under
his command even as he let go of Gerard and allowed the Red paladin to plummet
toward the distant ground.

Around Gerard,
paladins from every Facet sped head-first through the stormy fog, using their
hands and feet as well as their cloaks to make corrections to their courses and
avoid collisions. Every paladin received ample training in the use of their
cloaks and was comfortable falling through the air in a slow, controlled
descent, but what made this unit different was their use of what the gnomes
called a HALO.

High Altitude,
Low Opening.

Gnomes used
parachutes for safety while working in their flying machines,
[34]
and years ago Gerard had heard mention of
this technique among the more adventurous of gnomish youths. The burning
question among gnomish daredevils was just how high they could fly and how
close could they get to the ground and still open their parachutes safely.

Paladins had an
advantage because of their superior control using their cloaks, and Gerard
intended to exploit that to its fullest. They knew there would be clouds of
demons flying overhead to sense and intercept any angelic incursions, but the
demons would be unable to detect the fleet of paladins aimed at the heart of
their camp. They would pierce the defensive barrier and be on the ground before
anyone could react. It was an extreme tactic at best, but the camp was small
enough that with Shadow Company’s presence and some aerial support from the
angels – once the paladins had broken through and detection was a moot point –
Gerard thought it just might be feasible.

Even though
Heaven had no proper wind, Gerard felt the air roar past him, and he was glad
he’d put so much time into practicing this maneuver and correcting all the
mishaps that arose. On their first drop, half the paladins had lost their
helmets when they were ripped from their heads partway down. Now their helmets
were designed to stay on better. They’d also learned not to hold their weapons
while moving at high speeds for the same reason. Shields were strapped tightly
against their chests, which made maneuvering more difficult, but none of the
paladins who used shields was willing to leave the protection behind.

The little gear
the paladins carried was strapped to their legs in specially designed packs
that could be quickly shed upon landing if needed and repacked later. Several
designs had been tested and scrapped because they were too cumbersome for
close-quarters combat, but a few paladins still had customized theirs to fit
specific gear rigs.

A Blue paladin
started to overtake Gerard, and he motioned for the other paladin to fall back.
This was the first combat test of Halo Company and, true to his leadership
style, Gerard asked no one to go where he himself had not gone first – even if
he only beat them there by a second.

Then they were
through the dark cloud cover, and Gerard saw the first lines of demons hovering
in the air before him. Their ranks were spread thin and they moved lazily, for
they fully expected to feel the approach of any enemies long before they became
visible.

“Punch through!”
Gerard roared needlessly.
“Doriel, unleash the storm!”

As the paladins
pierced the first layers of demons, only a few actually collided with the
airborne monsters, and their momentum was sufficient that the demons were more
often than not snapped in half by the impact. The paladins did their best to
take the assault on their shoulders and other armored body parts, but Gerard
watched as one man crash face-first into a bloodhawk and saw his neck snap back
at an impossible angle. Fortunately, it was one of the blessed dead, so the
paladin “survived” the encounter. It took more than a broken neck to destroy a
dead man’s soul.

Gerard reached
the next layer of demons, which was composed mostly of gremlins and a few
balrogs to guide their lesser cousins. Behind him, even over the rushing air,
he heard the screams as a veritable deluge of angelic arrows rained down from
the clouds and tore through the ranks of the demons in their wake. The angels
above unleashed volley after volley of heavenly arrows, which quickly overtook
Gerard’s company and decimated the remaining ranks of airborne demons.

At a specific
command from the angels above, the paladins of Halo Company broke up and opened
a wide hole at the center, through which a pillar of angelic fire poured onto
the demons below.
 
A second command was
passed, and the paladins reformed into a spear that soared through the
resulting gap.
 
Another volley of arrows
surrounded them, widening the bubble of safety in the air and finally giving
Gerard a full view of their intended landing site.

A large pen had
been erected in which he could see at least fifty bodies crowded against the
fence nearest a bonfire of some sort. The bonfire was almost directly beneath
Gerard, and he knew all too-well what the demons were most likely burning. He
just hoped it wasn’t Birch.

Gerard quickly
sent mental orders back to Doriel, who then relayed them via kything to the
angels in his command and the paladins plummeting behind Gerard. The Red
paladin commander veered toward the bonfire and knew the others would be
following suit as per his orders.

The storm of
arrows reached the ground and demons fell screaming to the ground as they were
caught completely off-guard by the sudden attack. The next volley had already
reached the ground before Gerard gave the signal to slow their descent, and
with hard-trained discipline and precision, the paladins pulled out of their
suicidal plummets a mere fifty feet from the ground. Paladins had a distinct
advantage over gnomish daredevils: their blessed cloaks allowed them to
decelerate more quickly, with more control, and without the jarring shock
inherent in deploying a parachute, enabling them to open lower and more safely
than any other method of aerial insertion.

Gerard’s descent
slowed quickly, and he landed on the ground with only minimal pain to his
already dead body. He rolled to absorb the last of the impact, then sprang to
his feet and drew his sword in one rapid motion. Gerard cut a dumbstruck balrog
in half and decapitated a drolkul before the first demons made a move against
any of the paladins landing in their midst. Following Gerard’s orders, the holy
warriors landed in a group around the still-burning stake and immediately
formed a defensive circle around the unknown victim.

“For God and for
man!” Gerard cried out, and the paladins around him answered in one thunderous
voice, “For life!” as they pressed their advantage on the confused demons. More
of Halo Company landed in the protected circle every second, and their
defensive lines thickened and spread with the reinforcements. Demons died as
they tripped over their fellows trying to back away from the unexpected threat,
while others fell when they foolishly tried to single-handedly attack the
circle of implacable paladins.

Just as the
demons were beginning to regroup and attack with some semblance of order,
another volley of arrows heralded the arrival of Shadow Company. The denarae
fell more slowly than Halo Company and many were still carried by angels or by
a fellow denarae wearing the cloaks they had appropriated from the Prism under
Gerard. They were accompanied by Uriel’s Archangels to provide air support
against the demons still flying above. Garnet landed his company some distance
away from Gerard’s, and the two units mercilessly ground the demons between
them.

A platoon of
denarae landed in the fenced-in area, and Gerard recognized Flasch leading his
men in to protect the captives. Doriel led his angels in immediately behind the
Archangels and raked the demons with a point-blank volley of arrows that left
over a hundred demons writhing on the ground or collapsing into piles of
demonic ash.

Gerard made a
quick evaluation of the battle and grinned fiercely. He raised his sword
overhead and led a charge against the thickest pocket of demons. Overhead, the
Archangels cried, “
An’Deios! An’Uriel!
” as they followed Gerard into the
heat of battle.

- 2 -

Azazel watched
in mounting fury as his force of demons was systematically butchered by the
combined force of paladins, denarae, and angels. He recognized Uriel at the
head of his loathsome Archangels, and Azazel trembled at the thought of the
powerful Seraph getting a hold of him. The demon prince limped back behind a
screen of balrogs, drolkuls, imps, and gremlins, but he knew it would only be a
matter of time before the wall of demons fell before the unstoppable onslaught.

He planned to be
long gone by that time, if he could only repair the damage to his body. Two
angelic arrows had pierced his leg and another had torn a wide hole in one of
his wings and left a glowing blue residue behind that burned with holy pain.
The physical damage was minimal, but the presence of the arrows embedded in his
demonic flesh was preventing him from escaping back to Hell. Any demon of his
power could instantly translocate back to the infernal plane, but not hampered
as he was.

Azazel gritted
his needle-like teeth and grasped one of the arrows firmly in his hand. The
flesh in his palm smoked and burned furiously, but he managed to tear the arrow
out and throw it aside. Rather than tackle the second arrow immediately, he
instead tore out the remnants embedded in his wing, which were much smaller and
more easily managed. He cursed the holy residue and felt some of the pain ebb
away.

The third arrow
grew dimmer and promised his release, but before Azazel could pull it out a
demon was hurled past him and dissolved in mid-air before his eyes. The demon
prince looked up and saw a vicious-looking Red paladin bearing down on him with
Uriel directly overhead. He shrieked in terror and scrambled back, ignoring the
agony in his leg from the still-present arrow.

“Hold, Azazel,”
Uriel said, alighting on the ground, “and face your death with dignity. Be
thankful it is I who have you now and not Kaelus. He would not be so kind as to
give you a swift death.”

“Kaelus is in
the hands of the demon king now, fool,” Azazel taunted him as he frantically
sought a way to escape. “Your foolish diversions meant nothing. We knew where
the traitor was all along, and when we were ready, we took him!”

Another man
approached then, one of the mortal prisoners. He was human and wore a gray
cloak, but it wasn’t until he looked at the mortal’s face that Azazel cursed
himself as a fool for not paying more attention to his captives. The mortal’s
eyes burned with a Hellish fire, and he finally realized who it was he’d had in
his grasp.

“You!” Azazel
spat. “I should have known you’d be near that traitor Kaelus. Did you have fun
comparing notes about your captivity and tortures? Or maybe trading stories
about how you escaped like cowards and ran whimpering back to the mortal
plane.”

The mortal
laughed.

“
None
of
you know the truth then?” He closed his fiery eyes slowly and shook his head in
amusement. “Kaelus escaped
with
me, Azazel. I stole him out from under
Mephistopheles’s infernal nose, with never the demon king being the wiser. You
all wonder at the power that could thwart the will of the King of Hell because
you’re blind to the most obvious answer. Amazing. And how impious of you.”