The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (44 page)

“It’s no good,” one cried, then was flung aside as Ran
kicked him. The denarae landed a dozen feet away and lay motionless, his head
crushed by the blow.

“Let’s go, Garnet,” Gerard shouted, already running forward
with his sword upraised. The two Red paladins ran side by side, then split up
as Ran swiped first one, then both front claws at them. Gerard rolled on the
ground, narrowly avoiding the black claws that passed within inches of his
body. He swung his sword, but missed as the claws swept past.

“When will fools learn bigger isn’t necessarily better,”
Gerard muttered.

Garnet ran closer and attacked one of the hind legs, cutting
deeply into the ebony scales. Black blood sprayed out and hissed in the snow as
Ran bellowed in pain and kicked, but Garnet leapt back to avoid the blow. He
slipped in the snow and lost his balance, then Ran’s tail swept around and
crashed into him from behind, crushing Garnet between the tail and the thick
leg. Trebor immediately grabbed Brican and two other denarae who had regained
their feet, and they rushed forward to extract the fallen paladin.

Danner meanwhile had taken to the air and was sweeping
around Ran’s head, trying to distract the demon. But Ran’s attention was
everywhere at once, his maddened state of mind enhancing his already powerful
abilities. Danner dodged back from Ran’s jaws as teeth snapped shut in front of
him, and he pumped his wings furiously to evade a slashing claw.

He ducked and swooped under two claws, then flew along Ran’s
wrist and forearm. With his sword, Danner cut a long gash down the demon’s arm,
then wheeled away before Ran could retaliate. The wound hissed and burned as
black blood splashed out onto the white snow.

“Remember, you have to draw the
Tricrus
to destroy
him,”
Trebor kythed. Even his mental voice was panting with the effort of
talking to Danner through his innate mental barrier while trying to drag Garnet
clear of danger.

“Tell the bastard to hold still then,”
Danner
replied. Ran stayed constantly in motion, which would make completing the
Tricrus
that much more difficult.
“Make sure you kythe Gerard,”
Danner
added, flying clear of the demon’s swooping claws to catch his breath. Using
his wings didn’t seem to physically tire out Danner, but twisting and weaving
to avoid Ran’s talons was enough to make his heart race.

“Who do you think told
me to remind you?”
Trebor kythed.
“I’ve
got Garnet clear. Damn, he looks bad. I’ll have to heal him now. He’s out, though.”

“Right.”

Then Danner swooped back in, shouting to draw Ran’s
attention toward him. Gerard was rushing in from below, and the two struck
almost simultaneously. Gerard carved a deep furrow into Ran’s flesh on the leg
Garnet hadn’t attacked, and Danner succeeded in lopping off one of the massive
fingers that sought to crush his life from him.

Ran howled in agony, then backhanded Danner and sent him
reeling into a nearby tent, pulling the poles and canvas down around him.
Danner’s near impregnable nature protected him from the mundane damage of
crashing into the tent, but the demon’s blow left him feeling like someone had
run over his chest with a cart full of pig iron. Had he not been part-immortal,
the demon’s attack would have pulverized him.

“Wait a second,” Danner muttered, shaking his head to
reorient himself. “Maybe.” He closed his eyes in resignation. “Oh, this is
gonna
hurt.”

Danner launched himself back into the air and flew quickly
to gain altitude, but he flew
away
from the battle with Ran. He reached
what he felt was a sufficient height, then wheeled and flew back toward the
demon. Were it not for his glowing wings, Danner would be completely hidden by
the night and all but undetectable to the demon’s senses. So Danner dekinted
them.

Without his cloak, Danner plummeted toward the gigantic
demon-dakkan, approaching Ran from behind. Danner’s sudden reversion to his
wholly mortal state confused Ran, and he looked to each side trying to find
where he might have gone. But he didn’t look straight up; Ran was distracted by
Gerard’s next attack and didn’t realize which direction Danner had gone.

“Trebor, relay to
Gerard to be ready to finish the job from below,”
he thought, hoping Trebor
was tuned in to hear him.

At the last possible second, Danner asolved his wings for
the protection they offered, then plunged his sword into the back of Ran’s
skull. His sword was pitifully small against the sheer size of the demon, but
Danner had to use whatever effect he could to distract Ran, and the momentum of
his dive slammed the blade of blessed steel through Ran’s scales and buried the
sword to the hilt. Half a heartbeat later, Danner slammed into the black, scaly
surface. Had he not had the protection of his immortal heritage, the impact
would have crushed every bone in his body. As it was, the pain from his earlier
impact redoubled and his head spun in agony. Just touching the demon caused
pain, as every inch of his exposed flesh that came in contact with the black
scales seemed to catch fire simultaneously, and black and blue sparks hissed
away from the contact.

The immense demon reared his head in pain and tried to slap
Danner from his neck, but Ran was distracted and missed Danner. Ran succeeded
only in tearing into his own scaly flesh, worsening the damage. Danner pulled
his sword free and jumped forward, pumping his wings once for extra distance as
he shook his head to clear his suddenly blurry vision. The pain in his body
from touching the demon faded a moment later as he let his legs swing over his
head and hung upside down over Ran’s head. Eternity stretched between one
heartbeat and the next as he looked into a giant burning orb, seeing the terror
and hatred blazing within the demon’s gaze. Then his heart thudded, breaking
the moment, and he plunged his sword into the demon’s left eye.

This time, when Ran jerked his head in pain, his snout
smashed into Danner and knocked him away, and Danner plummeted to the ground,
leaving his sword embedded in Ran’s eye socket. Danner’s lungs emptied in a
rush of air as he crunched into a snow bank, and he lay stunned for a moment,
barely able to breathe. He rolled over and pushed himself to his hands and
knees, gasping for breath even as he looked up for the next attack.

Instead, he saw Gerard slash with his sword, completing his
final stroke as he carved the holy
Tricrus
into Ran’s leg. There was a
stunned silence as Ran’s anguished cries cut off abruptly, then his body shrank
and collapsed in on itself even faster than he had grown. In a matter of
seconds, he lay on the ground, forcibly reverted to his natural humanoid form
with Danner’s sword still protruding from one eye. Before they could react, Ran
shrank even further, then suddenly exploded in a massive release of energy and
demonic power. Gerard was flung to the side and he crashed into a pair of
denarae who were coming to help. They tumbled to the ground in a heap.

Danner was flattened by the blast, and he stood up afterward
spitting dirt and snow from his mouth. Every inch of his body ached, but he
quickly dekinted his wings and staggered to where Gerard was just getting to
his feet. He saw his commander was coherent and moving under his own power, so
he limped to Trebor and Garnet.

“How is he?” Danner asked.

“He’ll live, by some miracle,” Trebor said with relief in
his voice. “He’s asleep, recovering.”

“Well, we’re not finished here yet,” Danner said. “We’ve
still got to get out of here. We’re in the middle of a hostile camp, remember?
And I think we’re past the point of sneaking out. Sooner or later someone will
get up the nerve to come investigate, and they won’t be pleased to see us.”

“Give him to me,” Gerard said, coming up from behind, “then
we run.”

Danner groaned and quickly looked over Gerard, gauging his
commander’s fitness. The Red paladin was bruised and bloody and quite obviously
exhausted, but he shook his head and some of the glassiness left his eyes, then
he looked at the two men. “Trebor, you call the shots.”

“Can you handle him alone, sir?” Trebor asked.

Gerard smiled, his scarred face making the expression
somewhat grotesque. He stooped and hoisted Garnet’s massive body over his
shoulders and started to trot in the direction from which they had entered the
camp.

 “Better follow the man before he leaves us behind,”
Trebor said with a smile.

“Shadow Company, fall
back,”
Trebor kythed to the survivors of their assault.
“Form up around the Shepherd and start
running. We’re going to break our way out of here before they know what’s
coming.”

The battle with the demon had attracted a considerable
amount of attention amidst the ensuing panic and chaos, and a large crowd of
soldiers was already assembling around the area. Danner paused long enough to
retrieve his sword from the ground where it had been flung after the explosion,
then he hurried to catch up with Trebor and the others. His muscles and bones
screamed in agony, and eventually Danner threw caution – and himself – to the
wind and reactivated his wings. At least while airborne, Danner’s speed wasn’t
as reliant on a body pushed to the point of breaking.

True to Trebor’s prediction, the Merishank army was confused
by the titanic battle and had no direction at all. The small group from Shadow
Company slipped through the chaos easily, brushing aside any feeble resistance
it encountered. They didn’t even bother to stop long enough to kill or attack
the guards they passed. Instead, they bared their weapons, charged once, then
simply shoved the bemused humans out of their path.

With Danner unencumbered by the need to dodge opponents or
avoid tripping, he quickly overtook most of the rest of the group, and he ended
up flying directly over Trebor’s cousin, Brican, in front of the others.

“How’s it look up
ahead, Brican?”
Danner asked.

“Not good,”
Brican
kythed in reply. His mental voice evinced little of the strain Trebor’s did
when kything to Danner.
“Either word’s
gotten ahead of us or these guys were already ready for something, but they’re
pretty much in our way and waiting for us.”

“Alright then,”
Danner thought.
“Trebor, call it.”

“Shadow Company, plow the road!”
Trebor kythed in a
mental shout to the denarae around him. Coordinating their movements, the
denarae formed a double column with Gerard and Garnet in the middle. Danner and
Brican were still in front, and they would bear the brunt of the onslaught.
They charged between two tents, then the denarae fanned out behind them into a
blunt-headed wedge around their commander and his unconscious payload.

They charged into the defensive lines of the Merishank
guards who, despite their formation, were not quite prepared to meet the
sudden, coordinated attack from Danner’s small group. The sight of an angel
flying at the fore of the denarae obviously bewildered the men who saw him, and
Danner and Brican tore through the first two ranks with ease, slowing only
slightly as they pushed through the remaining lines of warriors. Then Danner
and Brican were free. The wedge collapsed into a double column again, with a
slight bulge around Gerard, and they slid through the hole Danner and Brican had
opened. Before the Merishank forces could regroup, the denarae were past them
and hurrying into the night.

Now Danner and Brican let the rest of their force pass them,
and Trebor fell in step with his cousin at the back of the formation.

“Are we being followed?”
Danner asked.

“That’s an
understatement,”
Trebor replied.

“I estimate there’s at
least a thousand soldiers close enough to be following us,”
Brican kythed
to both of them, his mental voice affecting disinterest,
“but probably only half that are actually in pursuit.”

“Lovely,”
Danner thought wryly.
“Are any…”

“Yes, there’s
cavalry,”
Brican replied, cutting him off,
“but they’re far enough back we might have a chance of getting away.”

“A chance?”

“Maybe even a good
chance,”
Brican kythed.

“Sometimes you’re too
much like your cousin,”
Danner thought.

“I heard that.”

Danner chuckled. Despite their danger, the success of their
mission was starting to make him giddy. Exhaustion and pain melted away from
his body, and had he been running Danner thought he might have started to float
anyway through sheer elation. Time stretched before them as they ran, but
Danner was too excited to pay any attention. Before he knew it, the forest was
in sight.

We’re going to make it!
he thought, crowing in
exuberance.

“Not without help
we’re not,”
Trebor corrected him.
“Open
your ears and pay attention.”

Then Danner heard the rumbling of a hundred horsemen
thundering closer. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the Merishank
cavalry right on their heels. He paled and fought down a surge of sudden panic.

“Don’t worry, it’s
already been arranged,”
Trebor reassured him.

Three platoons from Shadow Company appeared ahead in a
defensive line ready to receive Danner’s group and protect them from the
pursuing cavalry. The grim-faced denarae made an impressive sight against the
white snow, and their dark skin made them appear to be the same shadows from
which they took their name.

“What a beautiful
sight,”
Danner exulted.

The cavalry crashed into the denarae line a heartbeat after
Danner and the others crossed to safety, and horses and men screamed as chaos
ensued. The Merishank soldiers were not about to see their prey escape them so
easily, and they fought in earnest. Soon after the fight began, the main bulk
of the Merishank footmen arrived, and they pressed hard against the denarae
front. Danner saw it bow inward, then strengthen and solidify as more denarae
rushed to bolster the weak spot.