The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (47 page)

The elf stared at him and opened his mouth to say something,
either in reply or to curse Gerard, they never found out. A yellow dakkan
swooped above them, and a Red paladin dropped to the ground in the beast’s wake
as it climbed into the sky.

“Gerard,” the paladin cried, and Danner immediately
recognized Garet
jo’Meerkit
by his immense size. He
was clad in full platemail armor rather than his customary chainmail vest
Danner had first seen him wearing. “Thank God above you’re here, man,” Garet
said. “I just heard you’d returned to the city, and I was sent to get you. The
Prismatic Council wants to see you immediately.”

“They
what?
” Gerard asked incredulously. “There’s a
war going on, and from the looks of things, they need my boys to help. All of
them,” he said with a sweep of his arm to indicate the First Merishank. He
relaxed his grip and the forgotten elf fell to the ground, then scrambled to
his feet and ran off without a backward glance.

“I don’t argue that,” Garet said darkly. “I was also asked
to deliver a verbal message from Cariah. He said to tell you ‘the green and
violet have already fallen.’”

Gerard immediately let out a string of curses that set his
dakkan dancing in agitation. The red beast’s eyes were wild, and it started
looking for an enemy to attack.

“I’m no fool, Gerard,” Garet said. “I know that during the
fighting, the green and violet rock pillars in the extreme courtyards were both
destroyed. But they’re just monuments. Right?” Garet said doubtfully.

“How is the fighting in those areas?” Gerard asked, ignoring
Garet’s curiosity.

“Pretty light, actually,” the other Red replied. “Once we
drove them back, they’ve practically ignored those courtyards altogether. Oh,
they still attack there, but with nothing approaching the ferocity they showed
earlier and still show against the other five gates.”

“Bloody, motherless spawn of demon…” Gerard trailed off into
yet another series of vile curses. This time, when he finished, his face was
seething and the red scars pulsed with fury. “Is there any way for us to get
into the fighting soon?” Gerard asked, his tone murderous.

“Not really,” Garet replied. “We don’t even have the ability
to cycle defenders in and out at this point. The fighting is too intense on the
wall, and the only cycle going on is replacing the dead with the living. The
courtyards are stacked with the bodies of both sides. They’re even attacking at
night, if not as intensely. They’re either able to see by some Sin-cursed
ability or their commander just doesn’t care and is throwing them at us anyway.
We have to keep the walls well-lit just so we can spot them and counter in
turn.”

“Very well. Shadow Company, deploy nearby and rest, but
don’t get too comfortable,” Gerard said. “I’ll be back soon with further
instructions. Michael, tell the Merishank army to spread out and settle in, but
to make themselves available as needed if the defenders’ ranks start to thin.
Tell the ranking general to report to the city defenders as soon as possible.
Marc, Flasch, you’re in charge of Shadow Company until I get back. I don’t want
a single member of the flock on that wall until I say so.”

“The Shepherd has spoken,” Flasch said whimsically, but
saluted with all seriousness. Gerard returned the salute without comment.

“Marc, have the elves find somewhere…” the Red paladin
trailed off as he looked around and saw the elves were nowhere in sight. Gerard
muttered racial imprecations under his breath, then looked back at his
officers.

“Trebor, Danner, Garnet, you’re with me.” He turned to Birch
and the other two paladins, who had remained silent thus far. “Coming with us?”

“No,” Birch answered, his face dark and his eyes burning
with fury. His attention had remained riveted on a blank expanse of wall, as if
he could look through the stone and piles of bodies to the plains beyond and
see the coming terrors. Danner looked at his uncle and shrugged. With his
strange eyes, maybe he
could
see through to the demonic horde outside.

“Gerard, wait here one moment,” Birch said. “I need to see
something for myself before you go.”

“You’ve got five minutes while I see to things here, then
I’m leaving,” Gerard replied. “If you need to find me, you know the way.”

Birch nodded, and Selti stepped off a ways to change into
his much larger, winged shape. The paladin climbed aboard his mount, and Selti
pumped his wings, sending dust and debris swirling in the street around them.
The gray dakkan climbed into the air and swept around toward the Barrier,
allowing Birch to see the black sea of churning bodies enveloping the plain
between the Barrier and the Merging.

“Sweep forward and lower, but be careful,” Birch said,
patting Selti’s neck. The gray dakkan obligingly flew down toward the front of
the Barrier, but stayed high enough so as not to be caught by stray arrows
fired by the defenders at the flying monstrosities in the sky. Selti avoided the
twisted creatures whenever possible, but at one point he simply caught one
between his teeth and ground it to pieces. He spit the mangled body out and
made a noise to complain about the taste.

Birch ignored him – he ignored the whole battle raging below
him in fact. Instead, his vision was focused intently on a small circle of calm
in the raging torrent of the enemy army. He couldn’t see who was in that
circle, but he was willing to bet it held the commander of Hell’s armies, which
probably meant one of three things. A demon had been given command, a gifted
member of the damned souls had been given the chance, or else ─ and most
terrifying of all ─ Mephistopheles himself had found a way to manifest a
portion of himself in the mortal plane and was directing the combat firsthand.
The last option was the least likely, because of the nature of the Barrier, but
Birch feared it most – he knew the strength of Mephistopheles’s will and the
few limits it possessed. The King of Hell could accomplish almost anything with
sufficient application of his will.

“If that’s him, we’re doomed,” Birch said. “Anyone else we
could fight and perhaps defeat, but not him.”

It didn’t feel like Mephistopheles’s presence, but at this
distance Birch could hardly be sure. Still, he felt something, and it nagged at
his mind. He looked down and saw endless waves of twisted monstrosities tearing
each other apart in their frenzy to reach the mortal defenders on the Barrier.
There was something missing, though, something he couldn’t place. He watched as
leathery skin and scaled hide parted easily beneath swords wielded by men of
faith and men of desperation.

Knowing the enemy commander, whatever his identity, could
not see him, Birch nevertheless swept his sword from its sheath and saluted the
distant leader of the demonic forces. Then he turned Selti back toward Gerard
and the others waiting behind him, disturbed by the impossible surety that
something was very wrong with the battle raging below him.

- 2 -

Their reception before the Prismatic Council was
considerably more reserved than Danner had anticipated. He didn’t know what
he’d been expecting. Joyous shouts of congratulations. Heartfelt thanks and
commendation on a job well done. A bloody handshake!

Instead, the Council’s only mention of Gerard’s
accomplishments with Shadow Company was to inquire about the strength of the
Merishank forces he’d brought with him. The brief report Gerard delivered was
mostly just a confirmation of everything he’d already relayed to them in
writing – a succinct telling of the destruction of the last of The Three,
leaving out only mention of Danner’s angelic heritage. They were still
determined to keep his secret as long as possible, and it would be some time
before word leaked back to the Prismatic Council from any of the Merishank
soldiers who had witnessed the winged presence, and no one would think to link
it to any of the paladins present. Still, when they eventually found out, there
would be questions asked.

“The First Merishank are one-hundred-thousand strong, sir,
and the Imperial Army number slightly more than ten thousand,” Gerard said, his
voice expressionless as he related the statistics to the Prismatic Council.
“They have cavalry, both light and heavy, footmen with swords, spears, axes,
and other such expected weapons, archers, charioteers, and some siege engines,
which are currently still outside the city gates with a company of engineers
who are repairing sabotage done by my company during the past weeks.”

“Your sabotage is depriving us of much-needed defenses,” a
Yellow paladin said. Danner recognized him as one of the most antagonistic
during Trebor’s expulsion from training, and from Trebor’s description of
Gerard’s encounter months ago, this was the same paladin who had all but told
Gerard he was being sent on a fool’s mission and the denarae would be left to
the slaughter.

“Your pardon, sir,” Gerard said stiffly and with obvious
anger being held in check. “My original intentions toward the Merishank army were
to delay, cripple, and otherwise damage them in the name of
Nocka’s
defense. Had I known beforehand that I would discover a powerful demon in their
midst controlling them all and destroy it to take over the army and turn them
to our defense, I would have planned my activities rather differently,” Gerard
said with thinly-veiled sarcasm.

“An assassination carried out in direct opposition to this
Council’s orders,” the Yellow pointed out in dire tones. Gerard’s hands
tightened into fists, but he stayed silent. A nearby Blue paladin leaned close
to the Yellow and spoke quietly in his ear. Danner finally placed the Yellow
paladin’s name. Bart
Shivrey
.

“A tragic miscommunication, I’m sure,” Gerard grated in a
flat voice.

Several of the paladins on the Council murmured to each
other, and Danner sensed approval in many of their quiet words. Perhaps sensing
this was a losing tactic, the Yellow paladin quickly moved on.

“We must now move to other matters that more directly affect
you and your, um, company,” Bart said. “It has come to our attention that the
onslaught of Hell’s army has temporarily abated.”

“What?” Gerard said in surprise. “It was still raging when I
left only a few minutes ago.”

“Apparently shortly after you left, all of Hell’s forces
disengaged and pulled back,” Bart replied. “Which gives us some much-needed
breathing room to plan.”

A Red paladin on the Council spoke up.

“Their initial attack caught us by surprise, and we had no
time to organize a proper defense,” he explained. “We simply rushed the nearest
forces to the wall and scrambled as many paladins on dakkan-back as we could
immediately find. But now we can deploy our forces more equally along the wall
and with better readiness. Some of the siege engines on the walls and in the
courtyards didn’t even work, they have been neglected so. They’re being fixed
even as we speak, and with the addition of the Merishank engines, the next tide
of battle should not be so one-sided.”

“You won’t need to keep as many defenders on the walls above
the northernmost and southernmost courtyards,” Gerard said. “The demons will
still attack in an attempt to divert our numbers and gain another avenue of
assault on the adjoining courtyards, but they’ve already achieved their
objectives there.”

“Gerard!” a voice called sharply.

A Yellow paladin stood from where he’d been sitting
unnoticed in a corner of the seats in the room. Danner recognized him as one of
the Protectors – he’d seen him once several months ago, but had been prohibited
from learning his name. The Yellow paladin was broad-shouldered and as thickly
muscled as any Red, with a wide face and upturned nose. His deep-set eyes were
as hard as steel, and while this was the only man Danner had ever seen Gerard
willingly defer to, the Red paladin met his fellow Protector’s gaze without any
sign of backing down.

“Cariah, it’s too late,” Gerard said. “The secret’s
obviously out to the enemy, so there’s no point in withholding it from our own
forces. They need to know what’s at stake.”

Cariah stared icily at him, then finally nodded.

“What’s going on here?” a Green member of the Council asked.

“The Stones in the courtyards, which everyone believes to be
nothing more than monuments to the Merging War, are what’s known in the ancient
texts as the
Ash’Ailant
, and they are the true Barrier that needs
protecting,” Gerard said. “It’s been a closely guarded secret since the end of
that ancient war, but those seven megaliths of
angelstone
,
now five, are what maintain the limitations on the Merging’s existence. If the
Ash’Ailant
fall, so does the power holding the Merging in check. It will spread past the
boundaries of the Earthforge, and eventually everything everywhere in Lokka
will overlap with Hell. The demons won’t need to cross, because our entire
world will be a part of Hell’s infinite plane of existence.”

The Council erupted in a confused flurry of questions and
demands for explanations and accountability.

“Why weren’t we told?” was the most frequently asked
question, and so Gerard decided to answer it.

“Frankly, gentlemen,” he said loudly, and everyone in the
room fell silent, “you weren’t told because of the security risk. Only a
handful of people in this entire world have known about the power of those
Stones, to prevent the demons of Hell from discovering their significance and
attempting just such an attack to destroy them.”

“But this is the Prismatic Council,” an Orange paladin
objected. “Surely we should have been trusted with this knowledge.”

“Need I remind you, this Council
in its God-given wisdom
,
allowed a demon – one of The Three – to sit in its midst and corrupt several of
our brother paladins,” Gerard shouted angrily, all pretense of politeness gone
before the force of his temper. “Those corrupted paladins had to be hunted down
because you failed to identify that demon. Many are recovering now, but some of
our brothers did not survive our attempts to redeem and reclaim them. I don’t
know how the leader of Hell’s forces discovered the Stones’ true nature, but it
could have been through just such a subterfuge. All the secrets, plans, and
workings of our order were compromised by the demon, and half our number now
lie dead on the plains of Hell because of that demon’s influence.