The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (75 page)

Gerard had either forgotten that lesson or else ignored it –
he’d had no place on the battlefield when he descended from his dakkan. It was
a harsh truth to see in a man Garnet held so much respect for, but it was a
truth nonetheless. When Gerard descended to the battle, he’d ceased to be a
leader and had become one of his own soldiers on the line, and he’d paid for it
with his life. Leading from the front was a key aspect of everything Gerard had
instilled in them, but at a certain point in the command structure it became
impossible and foolhardy. Had he remained aloft and aloof, Malith would never
have come anywhere near him and he’d likely still be alive. Still, it had been
his choice to face the Black paladin, and placed in a similar situation, Garnet
couldn’t promise himself he’d choose differently.

And so despite his urge to stand beside his friends, Garnet
remained in his place atop a pile of rubble that let him see nearly the entire
stretch of the coming battle. He wished he had a dakkan of his own to ride, but
until Birch and Garet arrived with reinforcements, Garnet was stuck on the
ground with no alternative.

“Sorry, Garnet, I
meant your father and the paladins were coming, not the demons,”
Trebor
kythed in apology, and Garnet didn’t bother to hide his irritation.
“Although I suppose you could just as easily
take it to mean the demons. They’ll be at your position in T-minus five
minutes. You should be able to hear them soon, and they’ll have the morning sun
at their backs. Danner’s got Caret making one final sweep of the more distant
areas to see if this is all of them.”

Even as Trebor broke the contact of his kythe, Garnet could
hear a thunder building in the distance. The low rumble was punctuated by
Hellish roars as demons bellowed commands to their twisted underlings.

Garnet had forgotten about his father until the massive Red
paladin clapped a hand on Garnet’s shoulder and looked at his son with a grim
smile.

“You’ve done well here, lad,” Garet said approvingly. “I’ve
brought a dozen paladins with me, all capable fighters.”

“Birch?” Garnet asked, knowing Danner would want to know.

Garet shook his head.

“He’s occupied with only God knows what,” Garet said,
covering for the Gray paladin. In truth, Garet was frustrated by the complete
lack of interest or response he’d gleaned from Birch. The Gray paladin was
still standing atop the back wall of the Barrier, just staring at the battle
and the people dying around him as if he didn’t care a whit. Garet knew that
wasn’t true, and something important must be going on for Birch to ignore the
fighting and the suffering, but Garet was damned if he knew what it was. And
because he didn’t know, he was angry.

“They may need him more there than even we do here,” Garnet
allowed. Then he gestured with one hand toward the rooftops. “I just got word
from Trebor that the demons will be here within a couple minutes. Will you take
me aloft?”

“Of course.”

Garnet leapt onto the yellow dakkan’s back an instant after
his father, and the two were in the air with a few powerful beats of Shelly’s
wings. From this height, Garnet could see the black flow that was seeping
steadily toward the Barrier like a wash of filth following the tunnels of a
sewer. Rays from the rising sun chased them through the streets, and the demons
charged forward frantically as though being lashed and driven by the dawning
sun. They turned aside at the barricades Garnet had erected, and only a token
force of damned souls and demons bothered to crest the toppled buildings. They
were immediately set upon by the small groups Garnet had left there, but before
he could ascertain their effectiveness in holding back the small force, the
main body reached Siran and charged howling into the fray.

Garnet directed his father to fly him over the southernmost
section of their defenses and saw that Michael had also been hit hard, but was
holding firm. Atop the nearby roofs, Garnet saw the denarae from Trebor and
Danner’s platoons spread out and peering down into the streets, allowing their
leaders to see through their minds to observe all of the battle at once so they
could determine the best point of entry.

Garet steered back to the north, and Garnet was just
beginning to congratulate himself on the beginnings of a well-run defense when
Brican’s voice cut into his thoughts.

“Relay from Danner,”
Brican kythed, his mental voice hurried.
“Caret
has found another, much smaller, group of demons whose sole occupation seems to
be slaughtering people in their homes.”

Perhaps by accident, Garnet received a mental image from Brican
that was quite obviously what Caret had witnessed or was seeing even now. A
drolkul was pulling a woman from her home into the street, ignoring her pleas
for mercy and cries of terror. Demons seemed to have no lust for humans, at
least in the carnal sense. Instead, the drolkul slaked a thirst for blood as he
tore the woman to pieces and drank crimson fluid from her severed limbs. Garnet
nearly threw up over the side of his father’s dakkan before the mental image
was abruptly cut off.

He didn’t even stop to think.

“Trebor!”
he yelled in his thoughts.

“Yes, sir!”
Trebor replied grimly.
“And Danner?”

“Leave him here,”
Garnet replied reluctantly but without hesitation.
“I need at least one of you assaulting from above.”

“Understood,”
Trebor replied, but Garnet could tell
he was dissatisfied.

“To Hell with it, both of you go,”
Garnet said,
squashing a flood of doubts and second-guesses that nearly smothered his
ability to think.
“Do what you can, and I’ll make do here.”

Trebor didn’t bother with a reply. Garnet saw all the
denarae scattered about the rooftops abruptly turn as though one mind guided
their actions, and they raced across the rooftops to converge into two separate
waves bounding across the ceiling of the city. Garnet wished them a silent good
luck, then focused his attention back on the battle.

For a wonder, it seemed as though they were not only holding
back the monstrous press of damned souls, but they were grinding them up like
so much slaughtered meat. To be sure, there were numerous casualties on the
side of Garnet’s forces, numbers too high for him to calculate without
shuddering, but the toll on the forces of the damned were infinitely higher,
and they gave Garnet hope.

Then a large cluster of demons broke through to the fore
against Michael’s company, and the denarae were overwhelmed by the press of
foes they could barely damage, much less kill. Michael’s blade was an invisible
blur from where Garnet hovered, and he killed dozens of the demons, but their
numbers were too great and his platoon was overwhelmed before Garnet could do
more than begin his orders to send Flasch as a reinforcement. The army of
monstrous creatures swept past, and it wasn’t until most of them had passed
that Garnet saw they had largely ignored Michael’s unit in their rush to reach
the Barrier. All but a handful of the denarae were still standing, though
nearly all were injured, and they looked about them with bewilderment as they
realized they had not been slain.

Between Michael’s platoon and the Barrier, however, there
was little to impede the unexpected rush of demons and damned souls, and dozens
of men were torn to shreds before they even knew their attackers were there.
They overwhelmed the human and demi-human soldiers and rushed through the open
gates into the courtyard of the blue
Ash’Ailant
. Garnet had little hope
they would be held back, and while he cursed at the necessity, he ordered
Michael’s platoon to fall back and reinforce one of the other streets nearer
the center of the battle.

The defenders in the courtyard would just have to fend for
themselves to protect the Stone.

- 2 -

The cloaks they wore carried them swiftly from rooftop to
rooftop, and they chose their routes carefully to minimize the time they would
have to spend climbing. The two platoons of Shadow Company raced through the
city like shadowy gusts of wind, allowing nothing to stand in their way.

When the city landscape changed and they were no longer able
to cross the rooftops with such ease, Danner ordered them to the streets, where
they continued running. Caret’s squad was guiding them forward toward the
ongoing atrocities, all of them watching with fists clenched around weapons
awaiting the order to leap down and lay waste to the horrible scenes. Had they
done nothing, each of the denarae knew the terrible sights would haunt their
memories for the rest of their lives. This way, at least they could slay those
nightmares and perhaps prevent them from further reality.

Trusting Caret’s judgment, Danner deployed his platoon according
to his second’s suggestions, and Trebor did likewise. They climbed to the roofs
of buildings surrounding the scene of horror in the streets, where a hundred or
so damned souls and twenty demons of various breeds were feasting in a
bloodbath too horrible for words. The demons were either acting on orders or
merely taking advantage of the chaos to slake their own desires. Either way,
the result was carnage for the victims and terror for every mortal soul who
beheld the grisly sight. Desperate with fright, some people cowered in their
homes and prayed they weren’t noticed, while others lost their wits and tried
to flee their homes. These were inevitably caught and added to a growing pool
of people whimpering in a cluster and surrounded by the damned souls, who
guarded the mortals like cattle for their immortal masters’ feasting and
delight.

All this Danner took in with a glance, and in that single
glance he was overwhelmed with fury that seared his thoughts. His immortal
power yearned for release, and he quivered with scarcely suppressed rage.
Without thinking of the consequences, he asolved his wings and leapt from the
roof where he’d just joined Caret, a wordless scream tearing from his throat as
he plummeted to the ground.

”Bloody Hell,”
Trebor cursed, not bothering to hide
his thoughts.
“Attack!”

Oblivious to his own forces leaping down to reinforce him,
Danner set his feet and immediately waded into the nightmare with his sword
singing. The demons were shocked to the core at the sight of this avenging
angel suddenly come into their midst, and it took them precious seconds to
recover. In that bare amount of time, Danner had already slain ten damned souls
and was hunting down several others, who fled before him in terror as a hare
flees the hawk.

Danner’s eyes blazed with a furious blue fire, an inferno
that consumed his thoughts in a murderous rage. He imagined he was spreading it
as a cleansing flame, wiping away the blight of horror contained in the twisted
bodies of the damned souls. Two drolkuls leapt before him, but Danner cut them
to shreds without pause or remorse. A balrog attacked him from behind, and
Danner spun and bisected the demon at the waist without breaking his stride.
Another drolkul, another monstrosity destroyed.

Azure sparks flared and dripped from his eyes, then faded to
nothingness before they reached the ground.

He impaled another of the damned on his blade, lifted the
madly twisting creature into the air, then flung him to the side, cutting a
gaping hole in its chest in the same motion. The cursed soul twitched once,
then collapsed into dust and faded away into nothingness. Lost in the fires of
his fury, Danner turned in search of new prey and came face-to-face with an
even worse nightmare.

Fifty feet away, too far for Danner to cross in time, a
drolkul held a struggling denarae form in its grasp. The denarae’s face was
turned away from Danner, but a vibrant green cloak was clenched and twisted to
the side in one of the demon’s four claws.

Trebor struggled in the demon’s grip to bring his sword to
bear, but that arm was also pinned. His left hand was free, and he flailed at
the demon, which only laughed at his struggles and caught his wrist in one
massive claw. Around them, denarae from Shadow Company struck at the drolkul
with their blades, careful to avoid Trebor, but their weapons were having no
effect. Suffused with power from the grisly feast, the demon was even more
impervious to mundane attacks than usual. Even weapons marked with the
Tricrus
were having no effect – only a blade in the hands of a true paladin could
damage the blood-charged demon. Damned souls pounced on the denarae, preventing
them from taking further efforts to free the Green paladin.

Danner started forward at a sprint, fanning his wings to
give him extra momentum, but even so he saw he would be too late. In
desperation, he threw his sword overhand and watched the weapon spin
end-over-end toward the demon.

With the sword halfway to its target, the drolkul used one
powerful hand and tore Trebor’s head from his body in a spray of blood that
drenched the green cloak and turned its once lush color to a sodden black.

Rational thought fled Danner as madness consumed his mind,
and he screamed in wordless fury. His clenched fists burst into azure flame,
which then coursed up his forearms in a heatless blaze. Danner’s sword struck
the demon in the side and it dropped Trebor to the ground. The four-armed
monster looked up in surprise, and in that instant Danner struck.

He tore savagely at the demon, his flaming fists ripping
deep gouges in the creature’s cursed flesh. The blue flame scorched the demon,
and it howled in pain as the very essence of its being was assaulted by the
holy fire. Whether by his nature alone or through the strength of his fury,
Danner’s
āyus
was so overwhelming to the drolkul that its attempts
to strike back were useless – just touching Danner was damaging to the demon,
even supercharged as it was. Its cries of pain only made Danner attack all the
more furiously.