The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (70 page)

Danner looked down and saw the gray dakkan, still in his
drann shape, curled up in the space between Danner’s knees. He shifted his legs
without waking the sleeping reptile.

“Where are we?” Danner asked, looking at their surroundings.

“In a storage room in one of the walls of the Barrier,” Jon
answered. “There’s some pretty fierce fighting going on out there, so Perky and
I dragged you in here. I came upon him trying to move you himself, and I lent
him a hand. Then I let him go off to heal the wounded while I agreed to stay
here with you. Truth is, I’m exhausted from staying up with the injured for the
last several days, and I needed the chance to sit still for a while. I don’t
know where that man gets his energy.”

Danner tried to rise, but his limbs felt weak and he
immediately sank back to the ground.

“Careful there,” Jon said. “You might be a little while
before you’re fully recovered.”

“I need to get back out there,” Danner said, allowing some
of his frustration to seep into his voice. He still felt a residue of dread
leftover from his nightmares, and the thought of being cooped up in the store
room grated on his nerves with an almost physical pain. “I need to be out
there,” he repeated.

“You’ll be on your feet in no time, Danner,” Jon reassured
him. “In the meantime, let others do your fighting for you.”

- 5 -

Marc caught up to the man quickly. The panicked paladin was
too scared of Marc’s pursuit to bother locking doors behind him
-
or even closing them in some cases as Marc
drew closer
-
so every door slowed the
Blue as he tested the handle, while Marc had only to burst through those doors
the Blue had already gone through.

In the end, Marc caught him because the other paladin had
mistakenly entered a room with no other exits. The cornered paladin turned,
sword in hand, but Marc saw naked fear in his eyes.

“You’re the dybbuk, aren’t you?” Marc asked harshly. “You
killed Vander Wayland.”

The paladin’s eyes widened in shock, and now he looked
terrified as Marc drew ever closer.

“Wait,” the dybbuk said. “I can tell you much about your
enemies. I know their plans; their goals. This war isn’t what you think it’s
about.”

“What’s it about then?” Marc took two more steps, his eyes
narrowed.

“I’ll tell you if you let me live.”

“You’re going to have to do more than that if you want me to
stay my sword,” Marc said. “You’re responsible for a lot of bloodshed.”

“I know how they’re planning to attack,” the dybbuk said.
“This isn’t the only place. I can tell you…”

He cut off with a choking sound and his eyes bulged in his
head. His entire body lifted in the air a foot and dangled as though an
invisible noose was strung about his neck. He clawed at his neck and choked out
a scream, his legs flailing madly. He stretched out one hand and looked at
Marc.

“Help me!” he screamed frantically in terror. Then he gave
one final lurch and his arms fell limp at his side. His legs twitched a few
times, then he fell like a puppet with its strings cut and lay in a heap on the
floor.

People can and will always surprise you. It sounds so simple, yet we
take for granted every moment of every day that they won’t do just that.

-
Knerry
Raltin
,

“Forms of Communication” (102 AL)

- 1 -

Flasch was falling closer to the abomination when it
abruptly leaned forward, drawing away from him. Instead of landing neatly on
its shoulder, he now found himself aimed at the middle of its back. He quickly
swept his sword from the sheath and plunged it into the nightmarish flesh of
the abomination, using the impaled blade to hold himself steady against it.

The enormous demon felt the blessed steel biting into its
skin and reared back from the Barrier, flailing madly with both arms and
writhing in agony. Two monstrous arms reached back to swipe Flasch from the
demon’s back, and the Violet paladin received a heavy clout across the back of
his head as one of the fingers of melted flesh whipped past him.

Flasch lost his hold on his sword and fell downward, his
head spinning from the blow. His cloak billowed up behind him, then abruptly
his descent was arrested with a sharp jerk. He looked up and saw something had
caught his cloak and was holding him in place with his back against the wall of
melted flesh. He was a full twenty feet from his sword, which was still caught
in the abomination’s back. The hilt was too small a target for the abomination
to grasp with its enormous fingers.

With a wrench of his arms, Flasch reached backward and tried
to find something behind him to grasp. Suddenly his hand was being held in a
firm handshake, and he was able to twist himself about so his body was facing
the abomination. His cloak was released from whatever had held it, and Flasch
could now see his hand was being gripped by the hand of a damned soul melted
onto the abomination’s flesh. The face corresponding to the hand stared at
Flasch with a pitiful expression of hope: hope that Flasch might destroy the
demon and end the tormented existence of the damned souls attached to its
being.

“I’ll do my best,” Flasch promised in response to the silent
plea. “God, give me strength.”

With the aid of the damned souls, Flasch was able to climb
back up the wall of the abomination’s flesh. The demon’s arms were still
flailing about in pain, making his ascent even more difficult.

One of the arms swept down toward Flasch in a blind attack.
He leapt back and to the side and just cleared the wild swing of the thick arm,
then glided back to the abomination and landed only a couple feet lower than
he’d been. This time Flasch was able to finish his ascent to his sword. With
the grasping hands of the damned souls to steady him, Flasch drew his sword and
whipped it in three neat strokes, completing the holy symbol.

The three marks caught fire and seemed to burn inward as
though seeking the demon inside the conglomeration of flesh. When it was clear
his job was finished, Flasch clamored up the abomination’s shoulder and leapt
the short distance toward the Barrier.

- 2 -

Alicia grimaced in pain as the demon’s claw swept across her
forearm, drawing a long, thin scratch as the sharp talon grazed her flesh. She
beat the smaller creature back with her sword, which had little effect against
the unholy hide of the grinning demon, but it at least served to keep the
infernal beast away from her. Alicia sported a number of cuts and gashes from
the demon’s claws – all of which somehow already showed signs of infection –
and not a few bruises from where its fist had clubbed her to the side.

Somewhere in the room, she knew Billy and Jeremy were
fighting, but she couldn’t see them. She could hear them, though, as the two
would-be paladins cried out to each other and fought against the demons who had
entered the room. Maki was to Alicia’s right, and she could see he was
hard-pressed by the creature he was fighting.

There was a shout of astonishment and a whoop of joy and triumph,
and through a momentary lull in the fighting Alicia could see the cloak Billy
wore had turned to a brilliant yellow color. His sword bit into a demon’s flesh
with more success than any of their previous attacks, and a second later the
demon was a cloud of dust at the new paladin’s feet.

A moment later, Maki let out a similar shout of elation as
his cloak shifted to a resplendent blue, and he soon cut down his opponent as
well. He rushed to help Alicia, but another, larger demon cut him off and threw
him forcibly against a wall.

Alicia’s opponent chose that moment to attack, and she
avoided serious injury only by throwing herself to the side. She landed on the
lower mattress of the bunked beds and rolled to the other side. The demon tried
crawling after her, so Alicia turned and rolled through the next pair of beds,
then grasped the top bunk and hauled herself onto the upper mattress. Before
the demon could get the whole of its body through the narrow space between the
bunks, Alicia hurled herself from the top bunk and landed on the bed right
above the demon. Her weight caused the frame to tip precariously, and she
shifted herself so the whole thing fell to the floor, pinning the small demon
beneath the heavy bulk of the bed frames.

Alicia tumbled to the ground and rolled to prevent serious
injury, but she felt fire race up her leg from her ankle. She looked up and saw
Jeremy clutching his sword arm with one hand while still holding off one of the
demons. Maki fought against two of the creatures at once and was barely able to
prevent them from overwhelming him. Billy was fighting fiercely and killed one
of the larger, four-armed demons. He spun to help Jeremy, but another one of
the demons slipped behind Billy, leapt onto his shoulders, and ripped savagely
at his throat with a clawed hand.

A spray of blood washed across Jeremy’s face, and for a
moment the young trainee was petrified. Before any of the demons could take
advantage of his incapacitation, Jeremy recovered and screamed wordlessly in
fury. He attacked with a new savagery that battered the demons away like they
were no stronger than children.

Alicia turned as the demon behind her finally freed itself
from the trap of the bunk beds. The creature howled and turned toward her, its
eyes burning fiercely. She tried to stand to run away, but her ankle gave way
before she even made it upright. She cried out in pain and started crawling
away as quickly as she could, but the demon leapt forward with claws
outstretched.

Then suddenly something crimson and furiously fast leapt in
front of Alicia and seemed to engulf the demon. The pain from her ankle washed
through Alicia, and her vision swam dizzily as the room spun in circles. Every
time she tried to focus on what was happening before her, the demon and its assailant
seemed to slide to the side and she couldn’t focus on them.

As a loud scream burst from pain-filled lungs nearby,
Alicia’s sight went from red to black and she swam into nothingness.

- 3 -

Across the battlefield, Michael had landed safely on the abomination’s
shoulders, but after his first cut into its flesh, the demon had clubbed him
with one enormous fist and sent him reeling away. Another blow knocked him off
the demon’s shoulders, and Michael glided down to the ground amidst a press of
slavering creatures that turned on him in an instant.

Alone and surrounded by a sea of Hellish creatures, Michael
knew he would not last long. He fought with every ounce of skill he possessed,
but he was being pressed from all sides, and it was impossible to defend
against attacks that struck at his front and back at the same time. He stayed
constantly in motion, using the tactics he’d learned from unarmed combat to
disrupt his opponents uncoordinated attacks and keep himself free, but there
were simply too many of them. No matter how he fought, it was never quick
enough or fierce enough to hold the swarming creatures at bay. Michael’s
struggle drew him ever further away from the abomination, preventing him from
at least completing that part of his mission before being overrun.

Just as he was beginning to seriously fear for his life,
Michael heard a strong mental kythe from Brican Dok.

“Michael, hold up your
hand and hang on for dear life!”

Without breaking the rhythm of his attacks, Michael thrust
his left hand into the air, palm spread wide. He felt something smack into his
hand and instinctively he clutched at it even as something enormous roared by
overhead and he was wrenched from the ground into the air. He looked up and saw
the backside of a yellow dakkan and the inverted head of Garnet’s father, his
hair falling down toward Michael. Garet
jo’Meerkit
looked up
-
down
-
at Michael and smiled grimly. Then the
world was shifting as the yellow dakkan completed its barrel-roll and returned
upright, touched the ground briefly, then unfurled its wings and leapt into the
air.

Garet hauled Michael awkwardly onto the dakkan’s back behind
him as the beast pumped its wings frantically to gain altitude.

“God bless you, Garet,” Michael yelled into the Red
paladin’s ear.

“I got the idea from that winged buddy of yours, that Danner
boy, saving his uncle,” Garet yelled over his shoulder. The mountainous Red
paladin thumped his dakkan’s hide with one thick hand. “Didn’t know if a
dakkan, even one as smart and skilled as Shelly, could hold upside down long
enough to pull it off, not to mention the spin and liftoff, but wings and
demons, it was worth a shot. Good thing you saw me coming, or I’d have grabbed
you by the scruff of your neck.”

Garet grinned fiercely and Michael was forced to laugh. He
looked over the side of the yellow dakkan and saw an orange-scaled dakkan
closing on the abomination. A score of paladins flew in a tight formation to
cover his approach, battling to keep the hordes of demonic foes at bay. A Blue
paladin leapt nimbly atop the creature’s head long enough to make three swift
sword-strokes, then he jumped free and slowed his descent long enough for his
dakkan to sweep up beneath him. The pair then wheeled away just as the
abomination was destroyed, their escort close behind them.

Instead of melting into dust like most demons, the
abomination began to fall apart. The damned souls comprising the creature fell
to the ground like a mass of rats fleeing a drowning ship, and the abomination
slowly disintegrated into a thousand separate pieces. The demon within was
revealed for a brief second before it was reduced to black dust that dissipated
in the wind. By the time the demon was gone, all that remained of the
abomination was a pile of bodies on the ground, which slowly collapsed on
itself as the damned souls themselves turned to dust and blew away.