Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (77 page)

Now the denarae
were using their kything ability to reform the combined units so Birch could
hurry them all along and leave no one behind.

Finally they
were all together again, and an advance rank of a hundred paladins led the way
against the occasional groups of demons who were able to get ahead of them.
Another hundred stayed toward the back to guard against demons – usually
hellhounds, which were swifter than their fellows – while Shadow Company and
the Elan’Vital guarded the flanks. The last hundred paladins stayed toward the
middle as a reserve force, one of Gerard’s standard tactics that had served him
well in the past.

After hours of
frantic speed, Brican announced to Shadow Company that they had reached the
edge of the city. The denarae, in turn, passed the word to the paladins, who
had long-since learned to accept the inexplicable coordination and knowledge
the denarae seemed to have about the goings on around them. The mystique of
Shadow Company continued to disguise the talents of its members.

Danner breathed
a sigh of relief when the last of the stone buildings was behind him.

“We’re not out
of this yet, Danner,” Brican said from the back seat. Michael was crammed in
between Brican and the rest of Danner’s explosives, and Garnet was riding in
the passenger seat.

“No, but we’re
out of
there
,” he replied, jerking his head back. “That’s enough for me
right now.”

“Too early to
celebrate,”
Trebor kythed to them urgently.
“Your uncle spotted a flight
of imps winging in fast on our right flank, and there’s a whole bloody pack of
hellhounds bounding up behind us.”

Danner’s mind
raced as he tried to picture how his uncle had described the area between Dis
and Abaddon.

“Trebor, there
should be a large cliff somewhere ahead of us,” he said aloud even as he
thought it back to the denarae. “Ask my uncle how long it will take us to get
there, and if we have enough time before the imps and hellhounds catch up.”

A few moments
later, Trebor kythed back,
“It’ll be close, but one or both of the demon
swarms will catch up to us right about the time we get to the cliffs. We won’t
have time to get down before they’re on us.”

“We don’t
have to,”
Brican interjected just as Danner’s hopes began to fade.
“If
some of Halo Company can carry the elves and denarae who don’t have cloaks, the
rest can stay topside to cover their descent. Once they’re clear, the rest of
the paladins can just jump off and catch up.”

“Tell
Gerard,”
Danner told them.

“Already
done,”
Trebor replied.
“He and Garnet are a step ahead of us.”

Danner glanced
over at Garnet in the passenger seat, and the Red paladin winked at him.

Passing orders
on the move was difficult for Halo Company, but with the denarae to speed
things along, everyone had their orders by the time they reached the cliff. Birch
spun Selti about – the dakkan was in his runner form – and took command of the
paladins staying up top while Gerard led the rest in their descent. Only a
hundred members of Halo Company stayed with Birch; fifty of the holy warriors
followed Gerard unencumbered by denarae so they could guard their comrades’
descent. There were only forty of Siran’s elves left alive after their perilous
chase through Dis, and they were easily accommodated by the paladins. Two of
the denarae platoons had cloaks of their own, so there was no shortage of
people to help in the descent.

Danner, Brican,
Michael, and Garnet stayed above to help, and Danner left the engine running
for a quick getaway when the time came.

The hellhounds
arrived while the imps were still inbound, and the paladins were immediately
engulfed by a wall of slashing teeth and vicious claws. Hellhounds were among
the least intelligent of all demons, little better than the canine beasts they
resembled. Most were the size of greyhounds or retrievers, but a few were the
size of ponies and they easily brought men to the ground for their smaller
cousins to savage.

The paladins
held their ground, retreating grudgingly as the press of hellhounds forced them
back.

“More demons
coming up behind them,”
Brican reported,
“and those imps are just about
here. It’s time to go.”

Birch shouted an
order and the paladins turned and sprinted toward the edge of the cliff. Danner
and the others raced back to the buggy, but Danner told Michael to take the
wheel. He leapt onto the back and, for the first time since entering Hell,
allowed his wings to asolve, then clung to the frame as Michael stomped on the
accelerator. He had just painted a target on his back, but at this point he
decided stealth was a moot point, since the demons quite obviously knew exactly
where they were.

“Just drive off
the edge,” Danner shouted in Michael’s ear over the roar of the engine. The
Yellow paladin looked back at him in alarm, but nodded.

Next to them,
Birch and Selti were keeping pace as the gray dakkan broke into a full sprint.
Danner had never seen a dakkan moving at top speed on the ground, and he now
saw for the first time why they were called ‘runners’. Selti’s speed was
impressive, and he practically flew across the ground. He only started to fall
behind as Michael pushed the buggy into the upper range of its capabilities.

Then they were
at the edge, and Michael shut his eyes as he deliberately drove off the cliff
and plunged toward the ground below.

Danner
immediately let his legs drift free from the buggy, but he kept both hands
firmly anchored to the metal frame. As they plummeted toward the ground, he
took control of their fall, using the inhuman strength granted by his heritage
to safely slow their descent.

Behind them,
Birch slipped his feet from the stirrups and crouched on the saddle at the last
second, then jumped free just as Selti leapt from the edge. He controlled his
descent with his cloak and dove gracefully through the air in a slow forward
flip. After a few moments, Birch allowed his feet to swing back below him and
landed neatly back in the saddle of his gray-scaled mount, who was now in his
full-sized flying shape.

The last members
of Halo Company who had stayed above with them were still dropping at breakneck
speed toward the ground, but this was exactly the situation they’d been trained
to handle. At the last instant, they pulled out of an otherwise suicidal dive
and landed on the ground. Seconds behind them, Danner set down the buggy and
stood in the backseat again as Birch rushed by overhead.

“Let’s go!”
Trebor shouted over the din. Danner hadn’t bothered to dekint his wings, so the
denarae couldn’t kythe to him along with the others. “Gerard says we’ve got an
open road to Abaddon, and we’re to follow Birch with all possible speed. Siran
is already moving forward, and when we get there he’ll go in with you and a
platoon from each company. The rest of us will stay outside to guard your
backs.”

“How many have
we lost so far?”
Danner shouted back.

“Thirty down
across Shadow Company, and about that many from Halo,” Trebor replied grimly.
“Siran’s lost about ten of his elves. Their bodies are all back there
somewhere, and we may never get them back.”

“Understood,”
Danner said grimly. He tapped Michael on the shoulder. “You heard the man.
Let’s get moving.”

- 4 -

Birch and Selti
sped through the air and quickly overtook Siran and the Elan’Vital. The elf
captain raised his halven in salute, but otherwise paid no attention to Birch’s
passage.

The air around
them was darker than it had been elsewhere in Hell, and there was a distinct
odor of sulfur and smoke in the air that Birch remembered all too well. Even
the stone was a darker shade here, as if to signify that this was the heart of
Hell – the well of darkness from which all else sprang.

The acrid air
stung Birch’s eyes, but he squinted and peered ahead with relentless
determination. The pit of Abaddon lay ahead, and the land slowly began to slope
away below him. The palace of the demon king began to take shape before him,
and long-forgotten details were suddenly forced back into his mind.

Delicate
minarets adorned a hundred towers and were crafted with such skill that the
effect might have been beautiful were the entire palace not made from black
demonstone that seemed to suck the light out of the air around it. The stone
was ugly and unlovely. It did not gleam like obsidian, nor was it dull and flat
like unpolished black-steel. It was unlike any other substance in existence.
[39]
Demonic gargoyles adorned every corner
and spewed forth a ceaseless stream of fire from the Dena-Fol.

Off to one side,
Birch saw the daemelans – the personal bodyguards of Mephistopheles. There were
only a few dozen of the demons left, but they were more than enough to guard
the demon king against all but the most powerful of attacks. The daemelans
charged toward the main entrance on equine bodies, and even from a distance
Birch could hear their massive hooves thundering against the rocky ground. Four
arms brandished a variety of weapons, and Birch was glad he had never had to
deal with one of the powerful demons.

Selti sped
toward the massive front gates of the palace, which were currently undefended.
Apparently Mephistopheles hadn’t expected them to arrive so quickly – if he
expected them to survive this far at all – and had let down his guard. The
daemelans were too far away to stop Birch or those immediately behind him, but
they would be in place to halt the advance of Gerard and his forces.

Unsheltered,
they’re no match for daemelans
, he thought furiously as he neared the
palace.
Do I have the power to help?
Selti sheared off to the side and
Birch made a motion to his nephew below to deal with the gates.

Danner leapt
forward from his perch on his buggy and shot like an azure arrow toward the
palace gates. The half-angel cocked his fist back and struck the massive doors,
which were made of black steel instead of demonstone. The gates shuddered and
creaked open just wide enough that Danner’s buggy caught the edge of both doors
and forced them wide as the sturdy vehicle plowed through.

As Selti looped
around back toward the gate, Birch acted on some instinct and focused his will,
then watched in amazement as a crimson wall of power shimmered into existence
between the daemelans and the gate. The wall arced out around the gate in a
broad curve, providing enough of a buffer that the daemelans wouldn’t be able
to get anywhere near the entrance from any angle until they broke through his
barrier. Indeed, the foremost daemelans immediately began hurling their weapons
ahead at the barrier, and one generated balls of sickly green flame that
splashed and hissed violently against the shimmering wall.

It wouldn’t hold
the demons for long, but he was sure it would be enough to let Gerard and his
forces get inside the palace and take up defensive positions.

Birch reached
out tentatively to the denarae platoon leader Brican, contacting another mortal
for the first time in the same manner he’d once talked to Kaelus. The denarae
called it kything, he knew, just as the immortals did, but while it was a
special form of communication to them, the immortals thought of it no
differently than they did speaking face-to-face. He was surprised how easy it
was, and despite the denarae’s initial surprise, he quickly passed on Birch’s
message that the barrier was safe to pass through and would protect them from
the daemelans for a brief time.

Selti slowed
long enough to force the doors wide enough to fit his massive body, then
plunged into the palace in Danner’s wake. They quickly overtook the buggy,
which Danner had already rejoined. The cavernous hallway was large enough for
Selti to fly without feeling constricted, but Birch knew that wouldn’t last
very long. Fortunately, Mephistopheles’s palace was not laid out in some
circuitous fashion, and it had never been designed to withstand assault. It was
almost a straight shot from the main entrance to the hall of the demon king.

The Gray paladin
and his mount took the lead, and when he glanced back to check on them, Birch
saw Danner and Brican throwing something from the back of the buggy every few
seconds. He only had an instant to wonder before explosions shook the walls
behind them and huge clouds of fire burst from the rooms they had just passed.

Birch smiled in
approval at the destruction they were wreaking on the demon king’s palace.

The hallway they
followed was wide and straight, but still Selti’s wings occasionally brushed
the walls when he veered too far to one side. There were advantages to the grand
scale demons insisted on using in their architecture, Birch mused.

Finally they
reached the doors to the outer hall – the antechamber that led to
Mephistopheles’s throne room. Danner leapt forward again with his angelic wings
and threw an explosive charge at the gates. The doors were nearly ripped from
their hinges by the force of the blast, and as the buggy sped through the
resulting flames, Michael jammed on the brakes.

Selti flared his
wings as he swooped into the room, and while the buggy spun to a halt, the gray
dakkan dropped to the ground behind it and spread his wings for balance as he
stopped.

The antechamber
was draped with blood-red hangings, and on the black walls hung weapons of
every type crafted on the Hellforge. The black-steel doors on the other side of
the room were shut tight, but there was no doubt their presence was already
known.

Within lay
Mephistopheles, the King of Hell.

Stone is brittle and unchanging.