The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (56 page)

“Good thing you didn’t have them during the dwarven
genocide,” Danner remarked. “You might have been tempted to use them.”

“We did have them, lad,” Faldergash said, his voice suddenly
very weary, “and we decided to escape into exile rather than turn such
monstrosities against even the dwarves. But in defense of the world, against
demons and Hell-spawned creatures such as you described? I still don’t like it,
but it’s a necessity of war. Your defenders here have already used some lesser
variants that were developed locally by another Dale gnome in hiding. These
will be much, much deadlier.”

“Maybe they’ll be saved as a last resort now,” Danner lied,
trying to sound hopeful.

“Danner, this whole war is a last resort,” Faldergash said.
“Have you actually looked at the sea of creatures out there, or just stared at
those in front of you? There’s no way we can win this war, not here anyway. Not
like this. It will take an act from God Himself to save us.”

“Have faith,
Fal
,” Danner said.
“If that’s what it takes, I’m sure God will provide. He’s quite a nice guy in
that respect, I’m told.”

Danner turned to watch another armored buggy trundle by.
Faldergash stared at him with sad eyes and stayed silent.

A man should fight with precision and grace – it is a form of art.
Still, never underestimate the artistic expression of a sledgehammer.

- Malith
jo’Tarqin
,

private journals (998 AM)

- 1 -

Umbramanth
faded into
Blotmanth
, the final month of the year – the traditional
month of sacrifice which then rolled over into a new year with
Lentzmanth
, the month of renewal. The gray skies were
blessedly free of snow, but the bitter cold still made life miserable for the
mortals on the Barrier. They huddled next to fire pits for warmth, keeping wary
eyes on the plains beyond for signs of activity.

On the first day of the new month, the demonic army resumed
its assault against Nocka. Shadow Company was back in place outside the
Barrier, now augmented not just by the battalions of human defenders and the
elven company that had volunteered earlier, but also by the gnomish ground
vehicles, and an additional two battalions of
Nocka’s
defenders that had been inspired by Shadow Company’s bravery and fortitude, and
even a company of dwarven engineers that had recently arrived.

After speaking briefly to James and Birch, the dwarven
captain had promptly introduced himself to Gerard. “Our young queen sends her
compliments and insists you put our skills to work. We’ve a debt to repay your
Prismatic Order and will stand in the hottest fires to see it paid.”

Shadow Company was deployed in their standard wedge
formation, somewhat reduced by the beating they’d taken earlier, but still
holding strong before the central gate. El’Siran stationed his company of elven
warriors on the denarae’s right flank, and the dwarven engineers were on the
left. The human defenders were split, two battalions on either side, and the
gnomish machines were spread out across the whole front of the Barrier.
Overhead, gnomish flying machines hovered or circled in preparation for the
combat, and paladins mounted on dakkans were already taking their places in the
skies. Birch and the other members of his former
jintaal
hovered in
formation around Gerard, providing protection for the de-facto general of their
ground forces. The
jintaal
had officially been dissolved once its
mission to destroy The Three had been completed, but James, Birch, Nuse, and
Garnet still stayed close whenever possible. Perklet was somewhere on the
ground where his formidable healing skills could be of use.

Nuse’s
investigations at the
chapterhouse had gotten him nowhere, so he had reluctantly let the matter drop
and joined the others at the Barrier.

Once again, the demonic horde attacked with the breaking of
the dawn. Gerard was surprised they hadn’t begun the assault when night still
gripped the city, to take advantage of the darkness and deny the mortal
affinity for light. It forced him to wonder what the enemy general was
planning, that he hadn’t used such a tactic.

Gerard looked toward the oncoming wave of twisted bodies and
claws and noticed several points of light glowing in front of them. First a
dozen, then two, until there were at least a hundred of the fiery lights. More
and more appeared, as though the rising sun was setting the oncoming army ablaze
merely by touching them with its light. Finally, Gerard was able to make out
that the lights
were
in fact humanoid.

During a training accident when Gerard was a newly raised
paladin, one of his Red brothers was caught in an incendiary blast, and the
flames engulfed him. The Red’s clothing caught fire and wrapped him in a
blanket of flames so thick no one could touch him. By the time they put the
fire out, the paladin was too badly burned, and he died despite the best
efforts of the attending Green.

The sight of the flame-wreathed creatures running at him
caused Gerard to relive his horror from that day.

“What in San’s name are those things?” Garet yelled from his
nearby dakkan.

“Fodder for the slaughter,” Gerard called back with a fierce
grin of false confidence. He glanced at Birch, who gave Gerard a knowing look,
and he wondered if the Gray paladin was remembering the same misbegotten day.
Of course, Birch probably had other memories of flame to occupy his mind as
well.

“Faerer Company,” Gerard called to one of the human units
below him, “send an advance platoon to see what those things are.”

“Yes, sir!” the commander called back.

A group of fifty men broke away from the main lines and
double-timed toward the nearest humanoid flames. Gerard watched from the air as
the two groups clashed, and he stared in mounting horror as, one by one, all of
the human warriors were engulfed by the flames and fell writhing to the ground.
The merest touch from the flaming creatures was enough to set cloth, leather,
even
living flesh
on fire.

“God have mercy on us all,” someone muttered in the
stillness of their shock.

“Archers!” Gerard bellowed. “Bring them down now! Don’t let
them touch you!”

Arrows streamed from the defenders on the ground and from
atop the Barrier, and ballistae fired their massive bolts in the hopes of
impaling and destroying some of the creatures. Gerard noticed that the mutated
damned souls who followed behind the incendiary forerunners stayed well-clear
of any that were brought down by arrows, and those who were unable to avoid
contact erupted into flame just as the human warriors had a moment before. They
burned less intensely, but they, too, could spread the insatiable flames
through contact.

The archers brought down half of the fiery creatures before
they reached the mortal defenders, but those who broke through wreaked havoc in
Gerard’s troops. Even creatures that were successfully killed were still a
threat, because their flames stayed burning and never flagged in their
intensity, and the damned souls who came in contact with them continued to
spread the flames like a plague. Each newly ignited creature burned less
intensely than the one before, but soon enough, most of the advancing line of
mutated creatures was engulfed in flame and screamed in unceasing agony even as
they rushed the mortal soldiers.

The lucky intervention of a heavily armored gnomish vehicle
saved Shadow Company from the worst of the flames. The steel behemoth rolled
across their path and crushed all but two of the flame-infested creatures
bearing down on the denarae, then continued on in search of more foes to
destroy. Metal, it seemed, was immune to the spreading of the flames.

Gerard finally got a close enough look at the creatures to
see that beneath the flames they were, in fact, the same mutated souls they’d
been fighting since the beginning. The damned creatures writhed in unending
agony and torment as the flames licked at their flesh without consuming,
cursing them to endure the inferno without hope of relief.

Cursing them…
Gerard mulled the thought in his mind
for a half second before he kicked his dakkan into a dive to bring him closer.

“Steady, Sabor, don’t get too close,” Gerard said aloud.
“Your scales already look like fire.”

Hovering over a pair of the flaming creatures who had been
hacked to pieces, Gerard stretched out a hand and murmured an impromptu
blessing, asking God to end their suffering and extinguish the flames. Few were
more surprised than Gerard when the fires actually spluttered and went out.

“Hellfire!” Birch shouted from above him. “Of course, damn
me for a fool!” He soared down on Selti and hovered next to Gerard. “You’ve got
the right of it, Gerard. Only holy intervention can put out the flames. Let’s
get some paladins down here immediately!”

“No need,” Gerard said, looking over his shoulder. The men
on the wall had witnessed Gerard’s success, and a large group of paladins was
already drifting to the ground from the Barrier in search of flames to put out.
Within a few minutes, they had all but the worst outbreaks under control, but
Gerard ground his teeth as he saw the disruption the attack had caused in his
defenses.

“Here they come!” Garet shouted.

Before the mortal defenders could reorganize and rebuild
their lines, the next wave of damned souls crashed into them. The press of
creatures was so strong, it was impossible for anyone to see beyond the reach
of his sword, and gaps quickly started to show in the lines of the human
battalions. The dwarves dug in their heels and refused to break or give ground,
and the gnomes scattered at the first contact and used their devastating
weapons to clear wide paths through the infernal army. Siran and the Elan’Vital
held with ferocious tenacity, and after only a few minutes the mutated souls
began to avoid the elven company as much as they had Shadow Company.

Overhead, damned souls mutated into flying shapes swept in
thick droves around the dakkans and gnomish flying machines. The gnomes on
board lit fuses on small explosives and threw them at clumps of the flying
creatures, but after the first few devastating explosions the damned souls
learned to stay spread out and not attack in clusters. After that, the airborne
pilots had more success dropping their explosives to the ground, but they had
to avoid the twisted souls that tried to grapple their way on board the flying
machines to claw at the pilots.

The machines that relied on hot-air balloons to stay aloft
fared poorly. Small lesser demons later identified as gremlins flew on leathery
wings and landed on the balloons, where they tore great rents in the material
with their claws, and the machines quickly started to lose altitude. Only three
of the six made it back to the city and the plains beyond before they were
forced to land, two others shifted course and landed in the nearby Earthforge,
but one ─ the first to be attacked and the most heavily damaged ─
crashed in the midst of the Hellish army and was quickly swallowed by the black
tide. A few seconds later, an explosion tore the ship apart from the inside,
incinerating dozens of twisted souls.

The gremlins also made their way onto the mechanized gliders
and fixed-wing aircraft and took great delight in ripping vital machinery to
shreds in only a few seconds.

The paladins flying on their dakkans tried to keep the
creatures away from the flying machines as best they could, but there were only
a few hundred of them in the air, versus several thousand of the demons and
damned souls, and they were quickly overwhelmed. Two dakkans collided as their
paladins tried to avoid swarms of the flying beasts, and the two human riders
were thrown clear from their mounts. They controlled their falls, fighting off
damned souls as they glided lower, and one of the dakkans swooped down and
caught them both. The second dakkan had broken its neck in the collision and
fell into the courtyard with the broken green Stone. The few people in the
courtyard hastily threw themselves clear as the already-dead dakkan struck the
ground with a resounding crash.

Two of the fixed-wing machines went down as flying creatures
collided with the propeller on front and jammed the machinery. One careened to
the north and followed the balloon ships into the Earthforge, but the other
pilot lost control and the machine crashed in the heart of the city somewhere.
Both pairs of gnomes from each airship jumped clear in time and drifted slowly
toward the ground with enormous squares of canvas billowing out above them.
Their escape was short-lived, however, as flights of winged monstrosities
swarmed the helpless gnomes. None reached the ground alive.

- 2 -

All of this Gerard watched with despair as he saw the mortal
forces slowly but surely overwhelmed by the unstoppable tide of damned souls
that swept over them. Then the lines of battle below him solidified and the
crushing black wave was held at bay, first for five minutes, then twenty.
Gnomish pilots learned better how to avoid the clinging demons and to shake
them free when they did catch hold of their airships. The paladins flying
overhead gathered in groups of three or four and drove the flying creatures
like cattle into other groups of paladins. The damned souls were caught between
the two forces and annihilated.

Just as Gerard began to have hope again, a new force
arrived, not rushing forward like the tide of damned souls, but striding slowly
and confidently. A wedge of thirteen figures strode through the horde, parting
the sea of monsters and walking on the dry land between. The foremost figure
radiated authority and command with a palpable force, and Gerard knew he was
seeing the enemy general. The thirteen figures were all dressed in gleaming
armor with a mirror-like surface, and black cloaks streamed out behind them.