The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (74 page)

A spontaneous cheer erupted from the throats of every
denarae and human in Shadow Company, and Garnet yelled just as fiercely and
joyously as the rest. Most of them had tears in their eyes, and Garnet could
practically feel the mental congratulations being showered upon Trebor. Danner
and the other humans embraced their friend and wept unashamedly in shared joy.

Garnet lifted Trebor into a bear hug and hoisted the world’s
first denarae paladin into the air above them all. Trebor’s face was streaked
with tears, and he stared at the sea of jubilant faces with unrestrained
exuberance. When Garnet let him down, Danner, Marc, Michael, and Flasch stood
beside Trebor, and the six paladins embraced again fiercely.

Flasch looked at Trebor and grinned. “Now how embarrassing
would that have been if it hadn’t changed?” Garnet slapped the Violet paladin
upside the head, and they all laughed, none harder than Trebor.

Finally, they were together in a way they’d never before
felt. They were complete.

- 2 -

Birch smiled as Selti soared up to greet him. The dakkan was
still in his drann shape, and he settled on Birch’s shoulders and immediately
set to rubbing Birch’s face and neck with the back of his scaled head. He
appeared to have recovered fully from his injury with the exception of a long
scar in the membrane of his wing, and Birch was once more in
Perklet’s
debt for healing his dakkan.

“And is Danner recovered, too?” Birch asked. Selti chirped
in reply and bobbed his head.

“Good,” Birch said.

The Gray paladin was standing on the rear wall overlooking
the courtyard with the white
Ash’Ailant
. It was, by far, the largest of
the courtyards, so it held the most defenders. Birch hoped those numbers would
prove a telling difference when things came to a head, which it seemed they
might do at any moment.

Demons and damned souls continued to pour across the top of
the Barrier, but for the time being the defenders were able to hold them at
bay. Paladins on dakkan-back swept the skies overhead and attacked the
creatures climbing the walls, knocking them to the ground with a well-placed
swipe of a powerful tail or snapping one up to be ground between razor-sharp
teeth. Garet flew his dakkan back and forth across the front of the Barrier in
an endless cycle. The Red paladin struck out with his sword as his dakkan
banked left and right, lopping demons to pieces and aiming to at least maim the
creatures when he didn’t kill them outright. His yellow dakkan knocked demons
and damned souls from the skies, turning nimbly and even using her wings as
weapons at times.

“I bet you could do that just as well, Selti,” Birch said,
reaching up a hand to scratch the cat-sized reptile beneath an eye-ridge. Selti
crooned and leaned into the caress.

The few remaining gnomish flying machines also contributed
to clearing the walls. The motorized gliders soared overhead and dropped
streams of viscous liquid on the demons trying to climb the stone walls,
melting flesh and eliciting howls of inhuman agony. The other gnomish machines,
the fixed-wing contraptions, made their own runs against the creatures on the
Barrier, flying in pairs with a steel cable stretched between them. Demons and
damned souls were ripped from the wall and in some cases torn in half as the
steel cables cut through their ranks.

Birch felt an odd detachment from the battle, as if he was
merely an observer biding his time for something momentous. He didn’t know what
it could possibly be, but he had the sense that if he involved himself in the
chaotic tide below him, he would miss an important opportunity. Whatever it
was, he felt powerless to resist the overwhelming calm and patience that
flooded his being. He thought perhaps it was something from within
-
from Kaelus
-
but he didn’t know if he was blaming it on the demon as an excuse for something
else.

“We’ll find out soon enough, I’m sure,” Birch murmured.
Selti crooned questioningly. “No, not yet.”

He patted Selti reassuringly on one flank. Minutes stretched
into hours, and still he remained poised, waiting for what was to come.

“Not yet.”

- 3 -

Malith watched the progress of the battle with a deep sense
of satisfaction that was irritatingly tainted by his failure to capture Birch.
He’d been so certain his old rival, if he could be called that, would fall to
the press of demons Malith had prepared for him. That he had felled the angelic
rescuer was only a small comfort; Malith couldn’t even be sure the thing was
dead.

Something troubled Malith about his exchange with Birch, and
it wasn’t the unexpected appearance of a heavenly being, nor Birch’s
Hell-filled eyes. Something he’d said struck Malith and set him on edge, but he
couldn’t think of what it might have been.

He shook his head. More likely he was anxious over his
failure to deliver either of Mephistopheles’s prizes. No matter the course of
the war, which was all but preordained, presenting the King of Hell with either
Birch of Kaelus would have secured Mephistopheles’s favor for eons to come and
left Malith all but unassailable by the demon lords and princes. Without them,
all he had left was the war.

He cursed silently.

The assault on the Barrier should not have lasted as long as
it had. He’d expected to overwhelm the defenders at Nocka in a few days, a week
at the most. But the siege had protracted, and he’d had to waste far more of
his forces than he liked just to secure the third and fourth Stones. All but
one of the abominations he’d sent had been destroyed, which he certainly hadn’t
been expecting. One he could have understood, two he could have borne without
undue ire, but this? They took too much time to rebuild and replace to lose
them so easily. The one survivor had been badly damaged by ballista bolts
marked with the
Tricrus
and was only just now recovering from its
wounds.

Arthryx the Bender had spent half an hour doubled over in an
insincere show of humble apology for the failure of his creations. Malith had
seriously considered slaying him, so great was his rage at their failure, but
the demon was too valuable to destroy. And they
had
proved useful in
destroying part of the Barrier and weakening the defenses enough for two more
of the
Ash’Ailant
to be destroyed. In the end, Malith had spared
Arthryx’s
life out of practicality more than any sense of
mercy.

Mercy was no longer in Malith’s being.

“Report, my general!”

Malith stumbled at the sudden mental issue from his master,
Mephistopheles. Quickly he sought a solitary place in which he could sit
comfortably while he communicated with the King of Hell.

“Master, the third and fourth
Ash’Ailant
have fallen,
and the last three will fall soon,” Malith said quickly. Mephistopheles read
his thoughts as well as everything else contained inside his mind and soul.
There could be no hiding from the probing thoughts of the lord of demons, and
Malith had long ago learned not to try.

“Enough with this
skirmish,”
Mephistopheles said impatiently.
“When will the WAR commence? When will we reach our goal?”

“Any time now, Master,” Malith said. “My forces within the
city are ready to assault, and the defenders will soon be crushed. Then the
Stones will be destroyed, and we can proceed to the true conquest.”

“I have your every
assurance that you will succeed then,”
Mephistopheles said.
“I will not tolerate any further failure.
Even you, my general, are not so secure in your place that I cannot have you
replaced. Should you fail and displease me again, I will throw you to the
hellhounds and let them feast on your soul for eternity.”

Malith knew a very real fear, which he quickly brushed aside
in a show of confidence.

“I will personally lead the final assault and destroy the
last
Ash’Ailant
with my own hands,” Malith declared quietly. “There will
be no failure.”

“As you say, my
general,”
Mephistopheles said.
“For
on the other side of failure is oblivion.”

Mephistopheles broke the contact, leaving Malith trembling
slightly. He considered the possibility that he might still displease his
master and earn a most severe punishment. Malith ran over every aspect of his
battle plan in his mind, letting the details and surety of victory comfort him
and wash away his fears of mortality.

He would not,
could not
fail. Mephistopheles would
have his victory, and then his war and conquest. Malith would be exalted above
all other men. He stood with a sense of renewed confidence and invincibility
and strode from the tent where he’d sought solitude.

“Ready the entire army,” Malith ordered a trio of messengers
who crouched nearby, “and send word to our forces within the city. They are to
attack at dawn and grind the mortals to dust between them. I want drolkuls above
and below the ground, damned souls and gremlins in the air, and balrogs driving
the assaults on every gate. Use the last abomination to destroy the third gate
first, then the fifth gate if he survives. Leave the central gate to the end.
If the abomination survives that long, fine. If not, I want my battering ram
manned and positioned to assault the center gate.”

Malith paused, considering. “And I want the childris to join
this assault,” he said finally. “They’ve been largely held in reserve against a
final need, now I want them seen in the fore to inspire fear and unleash terror
and destruction.

“Send word to the remaining Black
Viscia
as well,” Malith ordered. “They are to assemble and meet me near my battering
ram. Go!”

The three messengers departed swiftly, each on a separate
course to relay his orders. Malith smiled once more in anticipation.

The Barrier would fall before the sun reached its zenith.

The protection of the innocent takes precedence over the punishment of
the guilty.

- “Teachings of the Blue Facet” (456 AM)

- 1 -

When the attack came, Garnet and Shadow Company were as
prepared as they could be, given the circumstances. Siran and the elven company
were massed at the center of the main street leading to the Barrier, where they
assumed the demons would concentrate their assault. Garnet had appropriated
explosives from the gnomish crews and used them to collapse several buildings
to block streets. His hope was that at least some of the demons and damned
souls would funnel into the lanes guarded by the elves and denarae rather than
simply climbing over the obstacles.

Garnet had also convinced several human and dwarven
regiments to help him, and had placed them at other streets. In case the
barricades didn’t work, he left some of these units to stand vigil near the
lanes where they had collapsed the buildings, but if a concentrated force came
over any of those streets, the small groups of protectors would be easily
overwhelmed.

They had passed the night in shifts, and while some slept,
others either kept watch or worked to bolster their defenses. As dawn neared,
few had managed more than a few hours of sleep – enough to stave off
exhaustion, but not enough to slake the craving their bodies felt after the
toll of the last few days. Garnet told himself it would be enough.

Guilian and Marc’s platoons were placed on streets flanking
Siran’s elves, where they could do the most good in case of a strong central
assault. Michael was the furthest away, on the far side of three human units
and one dwarven platoon. The Yellow paladin was the best and most
self-sufficient of Garnet’s commanders, so Garnet felt confident in leaving his
friend as cut off as he was.

Flasch was fulfilling his standard role of being everywhere
he needed to be, which usually involved being in two to three places at once.
The swift, wiry paladin was incredibly adept at breaking his unit into smaller
chunks and inserting them in four or more places at the same time. His nimble
mind was capable of following and directing each unit, a feat Garnet wished he
could do as well. But then, that’s why he had the men he did in charge. He
trusted them to lead and do their jobs.

Danner and Trebor were up to their usual vanishing act and
were playing hide-and-seek on the rooftops. The demons and damned souls were
harder to track and number than the mortal enemies Shadow Company had faced in
the past, so the two companies were running and leaping about the ceiling of
the city taking estimates and sending reports of their route and progress toward
the Barrier. With the losses Shadow Company had suffered, there were enough
training cloaks to outfit the survivors of both platoons rather than just
Danner’s, as had been the case when they were at full strength. When the battle
started, they would jump down at their own discretion
-
or Garnet’s hurried command if things got out of hand
-
to bring the most amount of damage possible
to their enemies.

That was a lesson they’d all learned from Gerard. You didn’t
need to strike to win every time. Inflict pain, deliver chaos, and bite off
whatever chunks of the enemy you could chew…then fade away. And then, when they
were worn down and wary, strike in force and crush them beneath your heel.

Trebor made contact with Garnet with the simple message,
“They’re
coming.”

Garnet’s hands tightened on his sword hilt. The weapon was
point-first in the ground, and his fist gripped it with knuckle-whitening force
as he restrained himself from joining the coming fight. Yet another lesson from
Gerard: you can’t command from the thick of battle. A commander’s place was
away from the immediate conflict whenever possible, overseeing his troops and
guiding their actions to preserve their welfare. Garnet’s time to fight would
come, but not yet. Eventually he might be faced with the same choice Gerard had
made, to join the fighting when his presence as an observer could do little
good, whereas his sword would help save lives if things reached the point of
true desperation.